Emergence
by Chris7221
Summary: Welcome to a world of disillusion. Welcome to a world of bloody revolution. Welcome to Earth. RWBY is arriving, and now fans of the show might be the only hope of getting the team back together. If it's even possible. Act 4: Stolen Flame - Raqqa.
1. Intro and A Year of Good Times

Ruby ends up on Earth. That's basically the plot right there. I think there's an opportunity for some interesting stories in it, and I haven't seen this concept done before.

Technically, this isn't a self-insert, since the OCs are Expys of my friends with some mixing and blending and not actual avatars of them. Yes, there are errors in geography. I should know better, but I don't.

We'll see how this one goes.

Does this mean Dust to Dust is dead? We'll see.

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

Cold.

Sleepy.

Hard.

Sleepy.

Uncomfortable.

Sleepy.

Pavement.

Sleepy.

Alone.

Slee- awake!

My eyes snapped open and I went from half-asleep to totally awake in like two seconds. I was still sleepy, but my brain started trying to process everything right away. I was alone! Where was everyone? Where could I be? It was dark, but not pitch black.

I felt for Crescent Rose, and it was reassuring that it was still attached to my waist. I didn't really feel like I was in any danger, so I didn't take it out. But if something did happen it would really really suck to not have it.

I looked around. I was sitting on pavement, so it was probably a city or pretty close to one. I looked up and yeah, there was the city all right. Lots of big towers and bright lights. It didn't look like Vale, really it looked bigger than Vale. And it was maybe five minutes away. Well, five minutes for me, anyway.

What happened? I couldn't remember. I mean, I remembered Torchwick, Beacon, the strange girl, the night at the docks, but I couldn't remember falling asleep or being knocked out or last night or anything recent or what happened to us-

"Yang! Weiss! Blake!" I called, but nobody responded. I stood up, dusting off my combat skirt. The road was dirty, and smelled like something gross I couldn't identify. If they weren't around here, where were they?

I was on a road, with the city one way and fields the other way. And more fields around me. It's dark and it's hard to see, but I don't see them around. I'll never find them in the fields, not on my own. If only there was a way to contact them...

Of course, my scroll! I whip it out and open it, only to find out that there's no signal. "Gah..."

So much for that idea.

"Yang! Weiss! Blake! Where are you?" I yelled again, hopping off the road into the fields. I don't know how long I looked, but it felt like a long time. Finally, I realized it was pointless to shout and search in a field in the darkness. They weren't here, not close enough for me to find them anyway. I was sad as I retraced my steps and went back to the road.

One last try, at the top of my lungs. "Weiss! Yang! Blake! Anyone?"

"Hey, girl, shut the..." someone shouted from a car as it drove by, but I didn't hear the whole sentence.

I waved frantically at them, but they were already gone.

Maybe I could get a signal or find a phone in the city. And if Yang or Blake or Weiss woke up out here and didn't find me, where would they look? In the city, of course! So I started walking toward it, still keeping a look out for the rest of Team RWBY.

It was further away than I thought. Forty minutes later by my scroll, I finally started to see buildings and a sign. It looked like the sign at the entrance of a city, one that would tell me where I was. I could barely make out the letters in this light.

_Welcome to Vancouver_

Vancouver? Where was that? I groaned, frustrated with what was going on. Where could I be, and how did I end up here?

* * *

**XCVG Systems presents  
**

_Everyone imagines ending up in their favorite fictional universe, meeting the characters, fighting the bad guys, trying to find their way in the new world. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What if one day, some of them were to arrive in our world? To our new visitors, I say this. Welcome to a world of disillusion. Welcome to a world of bloody revolutions. Welcome to Earth._

**EMERGENCE**

* * *

_**Chapter 1: Another Year of Good Times**_

**Sam**

Drink in hand, I held up my glass. "To another year of good times."

"More like another year of bullshit," the Asian guy beside me muttered darkly. Well, okay, he's got a French last name and sounds kind of American, barely looks Asian but that's the part we all focus on.

"Just drink that piss and smile for once, Cliff," I shot back. Cliff was a good guy, but man he could be a depressing asshole sometimes. Always busy with something or other, always ripping on us for being lazy pieces of shit.

It may be true, but you don't have to be an asshole about it.

I hold up my mostly-empty glass of beer again. "One last toast. _To another year of good times._"

Isaac and Ben both raise their glasses right away. Cliff sighs, says "Fuck it," and raises his too. Unlike our glasses, which are full of golden yellow beer, his is dark brown, full of Diet Coke. Cliff doesn't drink.

I shoot back the rest of my drink, then stand up. "Well, it's getting late. Let's head back." Wait too long and you'll find the SkyTrain isn't running. I learned that the hard way.

Ben, the only one of us that really had any money, paid the bill. Somewhat reluctantly, but he did it. Ben was the only one of us that had a job. He worked at Sobeys, deputy deli supervisor or something like that. With a job, girlfriend, and apartment, he was probably the only successful one of us losers. Oh, and he's really good at computers and makes money off that, too. I wish he would stop rubbing all that in our faces at every opportunity.

Isaac was on the opposite end of the scale. Dirt poor, he subsisted on student loans, grants, and mooching. Isaac isn't actually very smart, doesn't fall into the disadvantaged groups, and is kind of mouthy and arrogant, so I don't know how he actually got any of the aid. He went to BCIT to become a game designer, by studying systems administration. Yeah, I don't know how that works. But for being in such a shitty situation, he's remarkably pleasant. Until you piss him off. Or disagree with him.

And then there was Cliff. Cliff is... different. No, not gay different. Completely batshit insane different. He spent a lot of time working. Except his definition of working meant "make shitty games that nobody likes". I thought he was going to come with me to UBC in engineering, but halfway through first year he gave up. He was going to BCIT, to study the fine art of game creation, and stayed with his uncle, who we knew only as _Fujimori-san_.

I jest, of course. These guys are great, even when-

"Sam, yo, Sam!" Ben called, having finished paying. "Let's go."

"Right, sorry," I replied, taking the lead as we exited the bar.

The weather was nice that night. The sky was clear, but it wasn't too hot. Not unusual weather for the last day of August, but pleasant nonetheless.

We walked along the streets of Vancouver, aware of our destination but not in any hurry to get there. Even at this hour, there were people out and about. People going about their late night business. Store employees and city workers conducting night-time maintenance. Vagrants sleeping on the street. Some cops arresting a druggie. A girl in bright red asking for directions-

I nearly ran into Cliff, who suddenly stopped and asked. "Is that a cosplayer?"

"Yeah, Ruby Rose," Isaac... confirmed, I guess.

"What the hell is Ruby Rose?" I asked, stepping around Cliff and resuming my pace. Look, I'll give directions, but not to some crazy little girl! Out in the middle of the night, alone, in bright goddamn red? She could be like... Hit Girl or something!

I wasn't really thinking straight, but then again, I was drunk.

"The main character of Ruby."

I give Cliff a blank look. "The computer thing?"

He returns a slightly different, much more slanted blank look for a few seconds. "No, not the programming language!"

"Hey, stop, I want to meet her," Isaac interrupted, crossing the street. He shouted at the girl. "Hey!"

"Yeah, I don't want any trouble, let's go," Cliff said, following me. He's curious, but antisocial as all hell. I look behind us, and I see that Ben has stopped, with something in his hands.

"Ben, put that shit down!" I hiss, pushing his phone down. He pushed my arm away with surprising strength and brought it back up.

"Why? I like videos." God, Ben could be so infuriating sometimes. It's not really arrogance- okay, yeah, it's arrogance.

Isaac, meanwhile, had come back across the road with the red girl beside him. She looks maybe fifteen or sixteen, pretty small, and she's wearing this weird dress and hood combo. And her hair is also red. Well, reddish-black, anyway.

"These are my friends Sam, Cliff, and Benjamin. Guys, this is Ruby Rose. She's really good," Isaac explained. "She sounds just like Ruby Rose and she hasn't broken character."

The girl huffed. "I keep telling you, I _am_ Ruby Rose!"

Isaac waved his arm. "See what I mean?"

"This is actually kind of awesome," Cliff admitted quietly.

Isaac asked her, "Hey, do you mind if we take pictures?"

"I don't see why you would want to, but I don't see why not," she replied.

"Great! Benjamin, your phone has the best camera, you should take the picture."

I glanced at Ben, who shrugged as he readied his Nexus. I guess he didn't know what Ruby was either.

"Cliff, do you want to be in the picture?" Isaac asked.

Cliff stood there for a moment, thinking. He does that sometimes. Then he shrugged and replied, "Sure, why not?"

"Say cheese, derps," Ben said. A second later, they were bathed in the bright white of his LED flash. "Hey, this picture isn't too bad."

"Hey, do you think we could get one with Crescent Rose?" Cliff asked. Oh no, he was starting to get enthusiastic. Sometimes this was good, usually it was bad. "Does yours fold out into the scythe?"

"Of course it does!" I watched as she reached behind her back and pulled out something. Then, with a loud clanking noise, it unfolded into a giant red metal scythe, in a rapid and almost comical fashion.

I blinked. Nope, not the booze. Something in our booze, perhaps?

"Holy shit!" Cliff exclaimed, taking a step back. "That's... pretty awesome, actually. I think there's only one in the world that can do that! It must have been really expensive to make!"

She looked like she was about to reply, but Isaac interrupted her. "Maybe you could just like, hold it behind you, like in the cover art?"

"Cover art?" the girl asked, confused. "Do you think I'm a musician? Maybe you have me mistaken for someone else."

"You're pretty distinctive."

I didn't really mean that as a compliment, but she smiled and replied, "Thanks."

"Okay, on three," Ben interrupted, bringing his phone up again. Ruby hurried to get her scythe in the frame. "One, two-" He snapped the picture on two, of course.

"So, uh, where am I?" the girl asked after Ben put down his phone.

"Looks like... Burrard and Nelson," I replied, trying to make out the signs. "No, wait-"

I was going for my phone and its Maps app when she asked, "No, I mean, what city?"

"Vancouver," we all replied in near-unison.

She blinked, a blank look in her eyes. "What kingdom is that in?"

I guess this was part of the staying in character thing. Whatever, I'll play along. "Canada. But technically, we have a queen right now, and she doesn't really do anything."

"Yeah, we're only technically a monarchy," Cliff added.

"And, uh, what continent is that on?"

Cliff answered that one. "North America. Well, I mean, it depends on how you define the continents. So maybe it's just America. Wait- god damn it!"

"What?" I asked.

Cliff wasn't listening. He jabbed a finger in the girl's direction. "You're good. Really good."

"I don't know where that is," she replied. "Oh, this is such a strange place. Maybe one of you has a map?"

"Yeah sure," Cliff replied, handing her his phone. "I just got that phone, so be careful with it."

"Uh, how do I use this?"

"Well maybe if you used Android instead of iCrap, you wouldn't have so much trouble." Ben grabbed Cliff's phone, did something with it, and handed it back.

"Ben!" Cliff and Isaac shouted, probably for completely different reasons. Cliff was very possessive of his tech and Isaac liked to call Ben out on it when he was being an asshole.

"What?" In true Ben fashion, he saw no problem at all with what he did.

"Is this Remnant?"

"No, it's Earth," Isaac replied. "Sorry. I mean, I'm a big Ruby fan, and Cliff follows it, too, but I don't think anyone has actually written a Remnant map app."

Ruby blinked again. "What?"

Cliff sighed. "Okay, look, whoever you are, you're really good, and we appreciate it, but you're starting to freak us out. Please just tell us who you are."

"It might be helpful," Isaac agreed.

"I told you, I'm Ruby Rose! I'm a huntress-in-training at Beacon Academy."

I checked my watch. "Guys, we'd better get moving. SkyTrain."

"Do you want the pictures?" Isaac asked the girl as I began walking. "I can send them to your email, or your Facebook, or if you're on a certain forum..."

"No, just, please don't leave me here! I've been wandering around for hours and you're the only people who've talked to me at all!" she whined. I heard Isaac apologize behind us, something about not being able to help a fictional character.

We had made it maybe half a block away when suddenly, the girl in red just appeared in front of us, in what looked like a flurry of red petals.

"Holy shit!"

"Fuck me!"

"What the hell?"

"Jesus Christ!"

That was freaky. Seriously freaky. I mean, she just appeared. If she moved, it would have had to be really fast. I looked up. Nowhere to drop from. I grabbed her shoulders. "How did you do that?"

"It's my semblance!" she replied. Whatever that meant. I let her go, realizing a little late that if she could move that fast I probably shouldn't even make any sudden moves in her presence.

Isaac was animated. I couldn't understand what he was saying. Something something aura, something something semblance, something something how did you do that, something something awards, something something awesome. I could tell he wanted to know how she did that, but it didn't alarm him the way it did me and Ben.

Cliff, on the other hand, had gone quiet. His head was down, and he had a contemplative look on his face.

"What is it?" I asked. Quiet Cliff was not Good Cliff. Quiet Cliff was Scary Cliff.

"Guys, there's another possibility we have not yet considered," Cliff said slowly. "At this point I think it would be within the realm of reason to at least consider the possibility that this really is Ruby Rose standing in front of us."


	2. Consider our Options

Xyonai: Though I can't guarantee anything, I'm going to try to be more careful about locations and distances in the future.

ButtCatt: Legal age for drinking in BC is 19. But we'll get to learn more about the characters later anyway.

n2000nick: How do you get onto a plane and cross a border with no passport, no identity, and (in this case) limited money? Without revealing too much, you're on to something.

chaosrin: Greater forces will be involved, but not until later.

Drow79: Coming... well, right now, actually!

Zarrok1138: Thanks, and it's coming.

Originally, I wasn't going to introduce Jen until much later, but it makes more sense for her to appear now. Also, I apologize in advance for that scene. I'm not used to writing characters like this interacting like this. Usually I'm writing giant space battles.

* * *

_**Chapter 2: Consider Our Options**_

**Cliff**

"Guys, there's another possibility we have not yet considered," I said slowly. "At this point I think it would be within the realm of reason to at least consider the possibility that this really is Ruby Rose standing in front of us."

I mean, look at the evidence. Keeping in character even now is unusual, but not entirely unheard of. Crescent Rose, okay, yeah, it's difficult, but technically doable to build one that actually unfolds. Appearing in front of us in an extremely accurate simulation of Ruby's Semblance is maybe doable if you're good at parkour, but it's not easy either. And all three at once?

I paused. "The other possibility, of course, is that our drinks were contaminated with a hallucinogen at some point, and that we're all completely tripping right now."

"Not for three hundred bucks it better not have!" Ben snapped, butchering his grammar.

"When did you pay?" I asked him.

A pause. "After the drinks."

It's like that comic where Neo points out that the human batteries violated the laws of thermodynamics, and then the black guy points out that he learned those laws inside the Matrix. I smirked. "Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"So, how do we tell?" Sam asked, interrupting Ben.

"I'm still here, you know," Ruby- if that's who she was- reminded us.

I thought it over for a moment. If we really were hallucinating, it would be nearly impossible to prove or disprove that from within the hallucination. I didn't feel like I was hallucinating- from what I've heard hallucinating is more strange and surreal- but that's not exactly conclusive proof. It was late, I was tired, I couldn't think well.

However, irregardless of whether this was real or not, we could prove Ruby's identity with a reasonable percentile of consistency... accuracy... something. "Show me Crescent Rose again. Don't unfold it."

She took it out again and cradled it in her arms. "Now hand it to me."

"I don't know if that's a good idea..." Ruby replied questioningly.

A cosplayer would be more willing to show her work, but if she was still in character, then she wouldn't show it. But that's not what I wanted to see anyway. "Just hand me one of the cartridges, then."

"Well, okay," Ruby agreed grudgingly. In a smooth, practised motion, she racked the charging handle, caught one of the cartridges, and presented it to me in and open palm.

I took it and examined it. "Hmm. Big round. About the size of a .50 BMG, but I'm not going to measure. Silver case, that's odd. Black marking in the middle. Okay, it's belted, so it's not .50 BMG. Standard primer- that surprises me. Bullet has a red tip, silver, not sure if this is full metal jacket or ballistic tip hollowpoint."

I looked up, shrugged, and handed the round back to Ruby. It was definitely not a standard round, but it would not be impossible to assemble an accurate replica. That wasn't conclusive at all. In fact, I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. I could barely think. Combination of tiredness, stress, and shock.

"What about her scroll?" Isaac suggested. Damn, I guess I hadn't thought of that. Too busy being distracted by Crescent Rose.

"Why do you want to see my scroll?" Ruby asked.

"To see if it's real or not."

In response, she pulled the device out of her pocket and opened it. Transparent, folding display. Those existed, but to the best of my knowledge only as prototypes. Either someone went through a lot of money and effort or that was a genuine RWBY scroll.

"I think we should just assume that this really is Ruby Rose and go from there," Isaac suggested.

"That's a pretty big assumption to make," I told him, but I didn't get a chance to elaborate.

"Guys, train," Sam reminded.

"Shit!" I shouted.

I turned to Ruby. "Look, Ruby, if you are who you say you are, or even if you aren't, we can discuss this on the SkyTrain."

Her eyes lit up, which surprised me a bit. "Ooh, SkyTrain? Is that like a flying train?"

I almost felt bad disappointing her... almost. "No. It's just elevated rail with sections of subway."

"Oh." She paused, then gestured to a sign as we passed it. "What's Pacific Centre? Is that a mall?"

"Yeah, it's a big one," I replied. "I prefer Metrotown, though. That's around where I'm living."

She looked down, eyes sad. "They would have liked to come here."

"They?" Sam asked.

"Her team."

"Ah." I'm not sure what he meant by that.

I found myself reassuring her as we descended down the empty escalator into the station. "Hey. I'm sure they're fine."

"Yeah, if they're here, we'll find them," Isaac said, with more conviction than any of us probably felt. Even then I felt that he shouldn't have said that. We could easily get dragged into something.

If we were wrong, and this wasn't the real Ruby, we were being sucked right in. Either this really was Ruby Rose, or she was a really good actor.

"Tickets," Sam pointed out as we entered the station.

"Right," I said, steering her toward the vending machine. "Okay, we're headed out to Burnaby, except for Sam, so that's two zones, but it's late, so a one-zone fare is fine. I think you qualify for the concession rate, too."

I tapped the necessary buttons, then suppressed a laugh as Ruby tried to pay with Lien chits.

"Uh, money is different here," I interrupted. "Here. I'll pay."

I got out my wallet, then fed a loonie and three quarters into the machine. It chirped, whirred, and spat out a ticket. I briefly wondered if the machine was running embedded Linux, Windows XP, a newer embedded Windows, or if it was still on OS/2 Warp before deciding it was completely irrelevant.

Ruby, meanwhile, had already grabbed her ticket and was halfway to the platform. While we waited for the elevator to descend, she hopped onto the rail and slid down on her cape.

"You guys and your college discounts," Ben grumbled as we stepped onto the platform. The eastbound train was already coming into the station, and we rushed into it as soon as the doors opened.

The train was next to empty, and we found ourselves in an empty car. I took a seat across from Ruby, with Isaac beside her and Ben to my right. Sam stayed standing.

"There's a few things we have to explain, Ruby," I began as the train began to move. "I assume you're assuming you're somewhere on Remnant?"

"Well, where else could this be?"

I took a deep breath. "This is going to be hard for you to believe, but you're not on Remnant at all. This is another world. We call it Earth."

Then, to my surprise, Ruby began to laugh. I made out something about believing us through the laughing.

Loudly, I interrupted her. "I'm dead fucking serious. This isn't Remnant."

"How is that possible?"

I sighed. "I don't know. I don't know how that's possible. I don't know how you got here, why you're here, how or why any of this screwed up shit is happening. I don't know what to do or where to go or what the hell happens next!"

"Cliff, calm down," Isaac cautioned.

I took a deep breath. "Look, we're all half-wasted. I'm assuming you don't have a place to go?"

She nodded.

"Right. Well, you can stay with one of us tonight, and we'll explain as much as we can tomorrow, try to get this charlie-foxtrot figured out."

Ruby squeaked out a "Thanks," before Sam interrupted us. Loudly.

"Which one of us is she going to stay with? I mean, I'm in a dorm, so that's not going to work."

"Same here," Isaac said.

I quickly said, "Don't look at me! Uncle Fujimori already thinks I'm crazy!"

We looked at Ben. All of us. Including Ruby.

"You have got to be kidding me..."

* * *

**Benjamin**

I sighed before rapping three times on the door of my apartment. I had hoped to get the girl inside and stuff her in a closet or something, without waking up Jen. Unfortunately, I didn't have my keys on me. It had occurred to me about halfway through the train ride that they were still on the dresser. At least, I hoped they were.

The door creaked open, and I found myself staring at a pair of sleepy yet brilliant green eyes. "Hey, honey! How was your... night..."

She looked at me, then at the girl in red. Then she looked at me, then at the girl again. "That's pretty good. Now, are you going to tell me who she is and why she's here?"

"Hi, I'm Ruby Rose!" the girl introduced loudly, sticking out her hand.

Jen turned to me again, and I said quietly, "We need to talk."

She must have read into that more than I meant, because her eyes narrowed and she snapped, "Bedroom. Now."

Then she turned to Ruby and forced a smile. "You can grab a Coke from the fridge if you want, okay?"

"A what?" I heard the confused reply as Jen dragged me into our bedroom and slammed the door.

As soon as the door was shut, my beloved exploded in uncontrolled rage. She screeched at the top of her lungs, "Benjamin Taylor! What the _actual fuck_ did you do?"

She forced herself to calm down, taking a deep breath and lowering her voice. "Who is that girl? Does the costume really turn you on that much? Is she even legal? Is she the first one? How long has this been going on?"

"What?" I exclaimed. "No! It's not like that at all!"

"Oh, sure! Of course it isn't!"

I took her small hands in my big ones. "I would never cheat on you, Jen. I love you. Please... believe me."

She sniffed. "I'm sorry. Damn it, I feel like such a fool, jumping to conclusions."

I reassured her, "It's okay. I should have called ahead. We're tired. We're all tired, and it's a pretty big shock."

Jen took a step back and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "So, who is she, really?"

"I don't know," I replied honestly. "Isaac just said that it's really important that I let her stay here."

She blinked. "Isaac? Is she Isaac's cousin or something?"

"No. It's some girl named Ruby." I shrugged. "From something _called_ Ruby. Whatever that is."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jen said, holding up her hands. "Are you trying to tell me that's the actual Ruby Rose standing in our living room?"

"Yes. Apparently." I shrugged. Honestly, I didn't get the story and I wasn't really buying it.

Her beautiful eyes narrowed again. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"If it is, I'm not in on it. You can call Isaac and ask him."

"I think that's a good idea," Jen replied. I think she was still angry, but it was directed at Isaac now. She picked up her phone, a pink Galaxy S4, and called Isaac and his piece of shit Huawei Ascend. It only took a few seconds before he answered.

"Isaac... Hey, it's Jen... Yeah, they're here... There's a Ruby cosplayer standing in our living room... This is a joke, right?... What?...You're not serious, are you?... Actually?... What do you mean?... How is that possible?... Well, that's helpful... As long as you're sure... Thanks, I guess."

She put down the phone and sighed. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know. Look, we're all tired. It's three in the morning, friday night... no wait, saturday morning. She has nowhere to go. Let's just let her crash on the couch and we can deal with this tomorrow."

Jen sighed that cute little sigh again. "Okay. But tomorrow night..."

I smirked. "Of course."

**Ruby**

They didn't know I was listening.

I probably shouldn't have done it. I definitely shouldn't have done it. It was wrong to mess in other people's private lives. But I was curious, and lost, and I felt like I had to know more. Something strange about this place. I had to know more.

_Something called Ruby_, she had said. And they thought I was something called a _cosplayer_, a word that Isaac had used, too. And the part about being real, the actual Ruby Rose. What did that mean? Was I some kind of celebrity here?

Where was here? They said it wasn't Remnant, it was a place called Earth. But wasn't earth just another word for dirt? Who would name their planet _dirt_?

It was a strange place, and it seemed so safe and so dangerous at the same time. They didn't seem to talk about the Grimm, so I guess this place- Vancouver or Burnaby or wherever it was- was safe. It was dark and there weren't many people, but the ones I saw were so plain and drab. It wasn't like the bright colors of Vale. Maybe more like Atlas.

There was one thing that stood out to me, bothering me the whole time. Something off. Something different. Something missing. While I was drinking the stuff they called coke (which is AWESOME!), I finally figured it out.

Aura.

I could feel it in Vale, with all the people around. Some of us had stronger Aura, and I could feel them giving it off. I could feel the lack of it in the Grimm. It wasn't something I thought about a lot, because it was always there. But here, it wasn't. It was like being surrounded by Grimm, but it wasn't. The Grimm had almost a draining feeling, kind of menacing and stuff. Here, it just wasn't there. There was just nothing.

No Aura.

I didn't get to think about it much more, because the young woman with the green eyes and brown hair came out of the bedroom. Her name was Jen, I think. "Hey. Ruby, you said your name was?"

"That's right. I'm Ruby Rose."

An odd look crossed Jen's face before she motioned to the couch and said, "We don't have a spare room, so you'll have to sleep on the couch. Sorry about that, it's more comfortable than it looks, though."

"That's okay, I'll manage," I said. After all, I've slept on worse. Just not very well.

"Do you want me to wake you up in the morning?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Just wake me up when you get up."

She nodded, retreating back into the bedroom. "Sure. Good night, Ruby. You have a long road ahead of you."


	3. Welcome to Earth

Generally, I don't put down the "I don't own x franchise" disclaimer, leaving it implied, but I guess I'll point some things out this time. RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and was created by Monty Oum. If I was the creator, it would look a lot different and it would be a lot less fun. Several trademarks and brand names are and will be present throughout this story. This includes but is not limited to: TransLink, Samsung Galaxy, Huawei, Huawei Ascend, Coca-cola, Coke, Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Doritos, Microsoft, Windows, Sony, PlayStation, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Kalashnikov, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman. These are the property of their respective owners. With most of them, if I created them I'd be rich.

In this situation, what would you do? I'm still not happy with the explaining part. It was very difficult to write and though I rewrote several sections repeatedly, I still couldn't nail it down. I feel like it's missing important pieces, but when I tried to add them it did horrible things to the overall flow.

* * *

_**Chapter 3: Welcome to Earth**_

**Ruby**

"Ruby? Ruby, wake up."

"Pyrrha?" No, wait, it wasn't quite right. The eyes were right but the voice wasn't right.

"I'm not Pyrrha. I'm Jen."

"Ren?"

"No. Jen."

Jen... I don't know any Jen. I forced my eyes open and took in my surroundings. "Gah! Where am I?"

"Our apartment," a male voice said bluntly. I turned my head and saw a guy with messy hair and glasses holding a cup of coffee

"Apartment?" I asked. This isn't in Beacon... wait. Oh, no! "Agh, I wasn't dreaming, was I?"

"You thought it was a dream?" Jen asked.

"I... was hoping," I replied. My team... my world... all gone. "I was hoping."

"I think we all were," she sympathetically. She smiled. "So, Ruby, do you want breakfast?"

"Of course I do!" I said enthusiastically, momentarily distracted. "Uh, I mean, yes, please!"

"Do you like pancakes?"

I nodded. "Ooh, pancakes!"

"Hey, we don't have any game consoles, but you can play Angry Birds on my tablet or something," Ben said awkwardly, handing me a flat thing that looked kind of like an old scroll.

"Ben!" Jen chided.

"What? I'm letting her use my tablet."

"It's okay, thanks," I said, but I don't think they heard me.

"Well, show her how to play, then!"

"No, I have servers to fix," Ben complained, then walked into another room and closed the door.

Well, they were strange, but I guess they were trying to be nice. I put the tablet I didn't know how to use down and pulled out my own scroll. Angry Birds sounds lame anyway.

* * *

**Sam**

We'd actually arrived almost fifteen minutes before we actually knocked on the door. Me, Isaac, and Cliff just stood there awkwardly, like we were up to something, trying to figure out what we were going to say.

"So, what do we tell her?" I asked, breaking the most obvious question.

"Everything," Cliff said immediately.

"Is that really a good idea?" I asked.

Cliff shrugged. "She sounded okay enough last night."

"She's just a kid," Isaac said. "I don't think she really understands what's going on yet."

"Not for very long," Cliff said darkly. "She can handle it. Probably. If not, well, there's nothing we can do anyway. Not a damn thing."

"Cliff, tone that down," I said. "Stop being so dark."

"I'm not being dark, just blunt," Cliff replied. "Dark would be suggesting we break her neck and dump her in a ditch in the middle of the night because nobody's going to notice her missing."

"Cliff!"

"Hey, you're the one who made the accusation."

"We can at least leave out the part about RWBY," I suggested. I watched one episode and found it pretty terrible, but I read a few wiki pages before I got bored and I think I learned a little bit. Something something Remnant, something something Grimm, something something Dust, something something Aura, something something Faunas. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schindler, Black Primadonna, Ying Yang.

Cliff shook his head. "No. Absolutely not."

"You're going to tell someone who's standing right there that they're not real."

Isaac replied, "Well, she's you know, there, so she's real."

"I wasn't created by some weeaboo," I spat. Okay, that was maybe a bit undeserved. After all, I didn't even know who the guy was until last night.

"It doesn't matter. Representations of parallel universes," Cliff, not Isaac, explained, "I'm too sleeping to go into all the implications and the quantum shit, but suffice it to say, she's as real as us and it actually is quite significant scientifically."

Isaac recovered from my jab, and he added, "I agree with Cliff. Explaining RWBY is actually one of the most important things we need to do."

"Right, what else?" I asked.

"Literally everything," Cliff replied, accentuating every word. "What life's like on Earth. How to live here. The history of Earth. Current events. Our technology. Our customs. Our history-"

"You already said history."

Cliff glared at me. "I'm repeating for emphasis."

He paused. "Look, we need to bring her up to speed, and fast. We're talking a lifetime's worth of learned behaviours, customs, and background knowledge."

"Or we could contact the proper authorities," I half-joked.

Cliff took me seriously. "What proper authorities? The Men in Black? The Time-Space Administration? Those do not exist. Oh, I know, I'll just call up CBSA and apply for a visa for Ruby Rose, citizen of Vale, which is on another goddamn planet in another fucking universe."

"Maybe we should focus on finding the rest of her team and getting her back home," Isaac suggested.

Cliff looked at him, shooting him the look he gave people when he figured they said something extremely retarded. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"Uh... I have no idea, actually."

"Exactly. Fifty bucks she's here for the long haul." He paused, before retracting, "Uh, that's a rhetorical bet."

"A rhetorical bet?" I asked.

"It's like a rhetorical question. Don't try to collect because I'm not paying. On the other hand, you don't have to give me any money."

"Fair enough." I shrugged. "So, we just explain everything?"

"Yeah, it should be easy," Cliff said sarcastically.

"No shit." I rapped hard three times on the apartment door.

Almost instantly, Jen opened it. She whispered, "You figured it out?"

I whispered back, "Yeah. We tell her everything."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"She'll find out anyway."

Jen nodded, then stepped aside, letting us inside. Ruby sat at the kitchen table, the remains of breakfast sitting in front of her. Ben was nowhere to be seen. Probably in his nerd den programming or something.

I began, "Hey, Ruby-"

And then Cliff tried to do... something. "On behalf of the people and governments of Earth, I formerly, uh, I mean, I formally extend you our welcome to our world- no, that's not right- I formally extend you a welcome to our world of Earth- no, wait, no, it's fine- and, uh-"

"I think she gets it," I interrupted. "He's uh, kind of a sci-fi nerd."

Ruby looked up. "Oh, like aliens and stuff."

"Under most definitions, you are an alien," Cliff pointed out. "Even though you're biologically human... well, human-ish?"

"Human-ish?" Jen asked.

Cliff shrugged. "Well, yeah, I mean, they're stronger than us, they have that Aura stuff, maybe integration of Dust, and if there was an actual common ancestor definitely genetic drift."

"Huh?"

"This could be a while," I said, sitting down. Cliff, Isaac, and Jen followed my lead, crowding around the table.

"Ruby..." What the hell do I say? Welcome to a completely different planet, where everyone you've ever known and loved doesn't exist and nothing works the way it did on your world?

"Earth ain't Remnant," Cliff offered bluntly.

"Well, yeah," Ruby said, like it was obvious. What am I saying, it was obvious!

"It's not just a different world, it's, well, it's a completely different world," Cliff stated.

"That doesn't make any sense," I pointed out.

Cliff took a deep, exasperated breath. "What I mean is that this world might look similar to Remnant, but it's not. It's not just a vaguely similar world far far away. It's much more different than you think."

"What do you mean?"

"No Faunas," I replied. "Just humans."

"No huntsmen and huntresses," Isaac added. "No aura, no semblances, no ridiculous weapons or superpowers."

Ruby blinked. "What about the Grimm? How do you fight them?"

"No Grimm," I replied. "Although the answer to your question would probably be drone strikes."

"Oh. So your world is peaceful, then."

I laughed, even though I shouldn't have. "No."

"No?"

Cliff explained, "Well, the Palestinians and the Israelis are going at it again, there's ISIS in Iraq, and that's not counting the stuff that's going down in Eastern Ukraine."

"What?"

Jen attempted to be poetic: "Wars, Ruby. We make our own monsters."

"Oh. Well, we had wars too, on Remnant."

"Yeah, I wonder if they were as violent," Isaac mused.

"Probably not," Cliff replied.

"I don't think you want to hear about our wars, though," I said. She shook her head. "Okay, until yesterday I didn't even know what Dust was."

"Uh..." Ruby blinked and screwed up her face in confusion. "But that's impossible! I saw cars and scrolls and big buildings! How can you do that without Dust?"

"Sheer manpower, at first," Cliff explained. "Then falling water. Then burning coal. Then oil. Then harnessing the power of the atom."

"The what?"

"Look, I don't think Ruby needs to know the everything about Earth," Jen interrupted. "I think we should focus on practical advice."

"That's a good idea," I agreed.

"Okay," said Ruby.

"First, you can't carry Crescent Rose around anymore," I said, cringing for the inevitable response. Ruby was supposed to be very possessive of her weapon or something.

"What?" Ruby exploded. "Why not?"

"It's, uh, illegal to carry loaded firearms," Isaac explained tactfully.

"But how do you defend yourselves?"

"We don't," Cliff muttered.

I said over him, "No Grimm, remember?"

It was probably totally ingrained into her. "Oh, right."

"Okay, second, that outfit has to go," Cliff explained. "It's ridiculous."

"But I like my outfit!" Ruby complained. "It's stylish."

"The style would be considered a bit strange here on Earth," Jen understated tactfully. "I'll help you find some clothes that you like but still look normal here."

"Uh, thanks, I guess."

"There is one more thing..." I said, staring meaningfully at Cliff.

He crossed his arms. "Oh, no, I explained the history of our planet. You're explaining RWBY."

"How? I've never watched it."

"Isaac, you're up."

He sighed. "Fine."

Isaac turned to Ruby. "Okay, in this world, there's a... I guess, TV show, animation really, called RWBY. It's about you and your team, and JNPR, Remnant, Beacon... Torchwick. It's made by a small company called Rooster Teeth, created by this guy named Monty Oum. It's been around for about a year. Some of us are fans, and that's how we know so much about who you are and where you're from."

I was not prepared for Ruby's reaction. Judging by the looks on their faces, nobody was. She screamed, not horrified but _excited_, faster than we could understand, "OhmygodthatissocoolihavemyownshowhereIbetitsreallyawesomeandeveryonelovesitanditsgotweissandblakeandyangandjauneandnoraandpyrrhaandrenandlotsoffightsandiwanttowatchthewholethingrightnowandtheniwanttogomeetthemandsayhiandtellthemthattherealrubyroseloveshavingherownshow!"

"Ruby, slow down!" Jen interrupted.

"Sorry, but I mean, there's a show about me! That is SO COOL!"

"You're... not having the mother of existential crisises right now," Cliff half-asked, half-stated.

Ruby grinned. "Nope!"

"Well, I'm glad we got that sorted out," I finished, not wanting to dwell on things lest Ruby actually have an existential crisis. "Okay, Ruby, any questions?"

* * *

**Isaac**

Players and Pieces.

Ruby had enjoyed the first episode or so, like a lot. She was very, well, animated. Okay, yeah, I made the pun. Then, from the second episode onward, she started to get quiet and sniffly. When the credits of the eighth episode started rolling, she silently got up, walked to the bathroom, and shut the door.

We should have realized. I should have realized. But I guess we were just enjoying the show too much. For Sam and Benjamin, this was the first time watching RWBY, and Cliff and Jen were enthusiastically explaining various points to them.

So when she disappeared into the bathroom, we just paused it and did our usual things. Cliff whined about Benjamin's "pathetic disgrace to that beautiful TV" sound system. Sam tried to wrestle with Benjamin, who called him a derp and started doing something on his phone. Jen tried to get Benjamin's attention, and I raided their snack cupboard.

I had finished my bag of Doritos when I realized that it had been half an hour since Ruby had entered the washroom.

"Guys!" I interrupted slowly. "We need to check on Ruby."

"I'll do it," Jen replied, standing up and walking to the bathroom door. She knocked on it. "Ruby, are you okay?"

There was no reply. "Ruby?"

"Just open it," I told her.

"Hold on, it's locked," Jen replied. She inserted what looked like a bent hairpin into the hole in the middle of the doorknob and turned it. Slowly, she opened the door.

"Damn it."

Ruby wasn't there. The way the room was designed, there was nowhere to hide. Even the sink didn't have a big enough cupboard under it. Not only that, the window was open and there was a pile of rose petals beside it.

"She must have run off," Cliff said, stating the blatantly obvious.

"No shit, Sherlock," Sam replied sharply.

"Why would she run away like that?" Benjamin asked, "She seemed perfectly fine just an hour ago!"

"She's probably feeling alone," I explained. "She lost everything. I guess seeing Remnant again, even in anime style, was too much for her."

"We need to find her," Sam said bluntly. "Shit, we need to find her. Right the fuck now."

"Call the police?" Benjamin suggested.

"Are you insane?" Sam retorted. "The police are exactly why we need to find her!"

"You know, I agree," I agreed. "If the police find her, they're going to think she's crazy."

"And we're probably going to get into trouble," Cliff added. "For something."

"We didn't think she was crazy."

I thought about that for a moment. "We're sci-fi nerds and RWBY fans."

"We need to go back to where she arrived," Cliff proposed.

"We don't know where that is," Sam argued.

"Yes we do. She told us."

"When?"

"On the train."

"I was drunk."

"And this is why I don't drink," Cliff replied smugly.

"Wait, shouldn't we track her?" Jen asked. "Maybe we can trace her by the rose petals."

"Yeah, I mean, how do we know the location of where she landed?" I asked. "I mean, she didn't even know where she was."

Cliff nodded. "We don't, not exactly, but based on her description, I think we can narrow it down to a few places. South, either toward Tsawassen or Surrey."

Sam glared at him. "So we're just gonna guess?"

"We try to track and chase someone who's way faster and stealthier than we are, or we take a chance and intercept that person at the most probable location," Cliff summed up. "Do we take the chance or no?"

Sam sighed. "Fine. Your way. Two directions, two cars. Let's go."


	4. Searching for Answers

The reason for posting my review responses every second chapter is definitely not because I forgot to do it when I posted the last chapter.

_Zarrok1138_: Received and noted.

_Jacob Rickshaw_: It's here... and one more now.

_vcdm_: This was one of the things I wanted to cover in the last chapter, but I couldn't fit it in.

_mikel2814_: I've found it's always fun to see stuff set where you live or even where you've visited.

_chaosrin_: I'm glad you found that, because I had a lot of trouble writing it.

Trying to write as Ruby is hard. Trying to write as scene that's literally all running is hard. Trying to make it a decent length is hard. I actually considered doing this completely differently, not from Ruby's perspective at all, but chose to keep the original concept. So I apologize _profusely_ for pushing out a really bad chapter after a really meh one. I promise the next one will be good.

Also, I know that the errors in geography have piled up in this chapter. No promises about that getting better, because I suck at locations and distances.

* * *

_**4: Searching for Answers**_

**Ruby Rose**

I ran.

I had to find them. I knew they were out there, somewhere. They had to be. I just had to find them.

I don't know. I wasn't thinking. I was acting. Seeing them again... I couldn't just sit there. I had to do something. _Something_.

Isn't running more of Blake's thing? Blake!

Yang would love this city. Why was my sister never there when I needed her the most?

I even missed Weiss. I know she hated me, and we still had our problems, but I missed her.

I had to find them. All of them. They were here, I just had to find them. I could find them.

The window opened, which is good because I'd feel bad breaking their window. It had a screen, though, which I knocked out, and I did feel bad about that.

The apartment was only four storeys up, so landing was easy. There was some bushes under the window, but I missed them and landed on the sidewalk.

I had to go back to where I arrived. If they were here, it would be there. It was outside the city, some kind of field, near a big road. It was pretty far away.

I only kind of remembered how I got to the apartment from the train station. I could see the railway, which ran the same way as the road, but I couldn't see the station. I ran a few blocks down the street one way before realizing it was the wrong way.

There were some people on the street, because it was the morning in a big city. I noticed that there was more variety than the people in Vale, but mostly I was just trying to avoid them. Some of them gave me funny looks as I ran past.

They said that this world was nothing like Remnant, but it looked pretty similar. It was a city, with towers and shops and roads and cars and trains and... no airships. Okay, other than a few things, it was pretty much the same. They couldn't have no Dust, no Grimm, no Aura. That was impossible!

But I had felt the lack of Aura. I hadn't seen any Dust, or any reference to the Grimm. And apparently the people here thought the girl in red running through the streets leaving a trail of rose petals was strange. Well, even more strange than the people back in Vale would find it.

No time to think. I had to find them. I could get answers after I found them.

With one hand, I grabbed Crescent Rose and unfolded it. I stuck the scythe end into the ground and gave myself a burst of speed, launching myself in the air. I flipped over once before landing on the railway track. They'd told us not to use our weapons in a city at Signal, but this was an emergency! Besides, it's not like I actually fired it!

The railway track went two ways... duh. To the left was the way we came in. I think Cliff said that went to Vancouver, and this is Burnaby, which is part of Greater Vancouver. So that would be west. Which means the other way is east.

When I wandered into the city, the sun had just finished setting in front of me. Which meant that I had actually gone west, then when we took the train we went east again. And maybe north a bit? But I think from here I had to go east.

What if we'd gone farther than I had on the train? What if the sun didn't rise the same way on this planet? What if my sense of direction was just plain wrong? I couldn't worry about that. Not now.

I ran down the railway track, beside where the train went. A few times the train went by and I had to be careful not to get knocked off the track. I don't know how long it took, but eventually the track started to loop around. I could see a bridge in the distance.

I remember crossing a bridge to get into the city. I don't know if it was the same bridge, but I decided to cross it anyway. I was pretty sure I was crossing the same water, at least. I'd travelled much further than it looked, and I was getting tired. I could really use some water and cookies. I willed myself to keep going.

The track soon started to curve south, well, I guess it was south. I knew I had to go south. Well, I thought I had to go south. And maybe further west.

I shook my head. Trying to figure out where I had gone with logic wasn't working. I just had to go where it felt right and hope that I got it right. I hopped off the track. The track was wrong. I know I'd come here on a big road, and I headed toward where I thought it was.

Again, people were giving me strange looks. And a few of them were holding up their scrolls. I ignored them. If they knew they would understand. This was important!

Eventually, I found the big road. One way went toward the city, the other went toward... more city. I think I came from the right, so I went the other way. The road had lots of ways off, but none of them felt right. So I stayed on it.

Then the city started thinning out, and I knew that I was in the right place. I made it! Well, not quite, but I knew I was almost there. Then I could find Weiss and Blake and Yang and we could get back to Remnant.

But what if they weren't there. What if I was the only one that made it through... through whatever it was that brought us here? Wouldn't I have found them before if they came through? What if I was the only one left? What if I was alone on this weird world?

No. They made it. They were here. They had to be. I shouted, "Weiss! Blake! Yang! Are you-"

"I was wondering when you'd show up."


	5. Most Probable Location

This chapter may be a little short. Or really short. I know I promised a good chapter, and I apologize. This story will get better, but I'm kind of stuck in a patch of parts that are really hard to write for me. I usually stick to techno-thrillers and military science fiction.

* * *

**_5: Most Probable Location_**

**Benjamin**

I was driving my car, of course. I don't let anyone else drive it, because they might break it. Except for Jen. There isn't really much I can do to stop her. But usually I take my car to work so it's not there anyway.

My car is 90s vintage Ford Taurus in dull red. I drove it through the last few years of high school, but back then it was technically my dad's car. It became mine when I graduated, as my graduation present. It wasn't a great car, but it did okay. It's pretty well featured for the time, with A/C, cruise control, and power locks and windows. The biggest problem is that the V6 engine is a gas guzzling pig.

Jen was sitting beside me in the passenger seat, of course, and Isaac was in the back. Isaac smelled bad so I didn't like even having him in the car. He gave me a dirty look when I opened the back windows and only the back windows. I ignored it.

"What are we going to do when we find her?" I asked as we drove up onto the highway.

"We're going to help her find her team," Isaac replied, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I pointed out the blatantly obvious. "What if they're not there?"

Isaac suggested, "We can worry about that when we get there."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Jen objected from beside me. "We should really have a plan."

"Eh, plans are overrated," I said.

"Yeah," Isaac agreed.

"Don't be stupid," Jen snapped. "We're in pretty deep and you know it. We can't just run in and wing it."

"We can't really make plans if we don't know what we're trying to accomplish," Isaac pointed out.

"So, let's figure out what we're trying to accomplish, then." Jen paused, exhaling. "Ruby. We need to find her for sure. That's the first thing we need to do."

"Right, then we've got to find her team-"

She cut Isaac off. "No."

"No?"

"What do you mean, no?" I asked.

"We have to find out what happened to the rest of RWBY," Jen corrected. "We need to know if they're actually here before we start looking for them."

"And how are we going to do that?" I pointed out. "I mean, we can't really easily prove a negative case here."

Jen nodded, pressing her lips together in thought. "Okay, you're right. We're going to have to look for them until we're sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that they aren't here."

"They could be anywhere."

She nodded again. "We're going to assume that they've arrived where Ruby did, or at least very close to it."

"And if they haven't?"

"We can try putting up posters or Craigslist ads," Isaac suggested.

"Yeah, that's gonna work really well, Isaac," I said sarcastically. "Looking for Yang Shauw Long, identifiable by long yellow hair, shotgun gauntlets, boobs, and generally looking like a fictional character. And we can use fanart for the poster, so they really take us seriously!"

"We could say they're cosplayers that got lost," Jen proposed. "In fact, that's probably the best way to do it. Not sure about the details, but it could work. We'd have to ask if others had seen them, at any rate."

"Then what?" I asked curtly.

"Either one of two things. If we do find the rest of the team, or they show up at our doorstep, or someone else finds them and we retrieve them, we give them shelter and introduce them to our world. If we don't find them, well, I guess we do the same thing for Ruby alone."

"Then what?" I repeated.

"Then we figure it out then."

"I thought you said-"

"I said we needed a plan," Jen replied. "I was implying a plan for the immediate future. We need to figure out some things now, but not everything."

"Should we tell Sam and Cliff what we've figured out?" Isaac asked.

Jen shook her head, even though Isaac wouldn't be able to see the motion from behind her. "No, we don't have to. When we get to where we're going, I'll call them."

"Speaking of where we're going," I said, pointing out the window. We were outside the city, surrounded by farmers' fields. We were on a fairly wide two-lane road beside the highway, but there were lots of small roads coming off it.

"There's quite a few roads around here," Isaac noted. "I guess we're going to have to check them all, huh?"

"Do you know how to do a search pattern?" Jen asked.

I shrugged. "Nope."

She sighed one of those cute sighs. "Start with the next right."

From the back, I heard Isaac mutter, "Sure you don't want to send a text, at least?"

**Sam**

I tapped my hands on the steering wheel as we sat at the red light. "So..."

"So?" Cliff asked from the passenger seat.

"So... who is this Ruby Rose, anyway?"

He glared at me. "I thought you watched RWBY?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I did. But I wasn't really paying attention."

"How could you not pay attention?" Cliff exploded. "RWBY is like... pure awesomeness!"

"Honestly, it seemed like any other shitty anime to me. It really wasn't that good," I said, deliberately baiting Cliff. Honestly, I really _hadn't_ been paying much attention. My opinion of RWBY was fairly neutral at that point.

"First, RWBY is American and CGI, so it technically isn't anime. Second, how the fuck can you think RWBY is crap?"

"I didn't say it was crap," I replied offhand. We were on the highway now, and I changed lanes to pass a particularly slow pickup truck. "I said it wasn't very good."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, crap isn't worth considering, but not very good, well, I guess that means its not worth considering either."

Cliff huffed. "Okay, tell me what's wrong with RWBY. I can guarantee it's just you being a complete moron."

Hmm, what should I point out? Ah! "All the characters are kids. And most of them are girls."

"Well, yeah, it's fundamentally a coming of age story," Cliff replied. Okay, I'll admit, he's got a point. "In addition to calling back on several very common tropes-"

I cut him off. No way I'm going to concede. "That's the other thing. It can't decide if it wants to play everything straight, be a deconstruction or a reconstruction."

"You don't have to pick one or the other," Cliff pointed out angrily. "Look at Kill Bill, Kick-Ass, or Bioshock Infinite. You can use tropes and deconstruct and/or reconstruct them at the same time, hell, you can even revel in them and deconstruct them!"

"But the setting isn't well developed," I argued. "We hardly know anything at all about Remnant!"

"It's actually not too bad," Cliff countered. "Until Season 3, the original Star Trek was way worse. Besides, since when did you give a shit about how well developed a setting is?"

He paused. "Look, it sounds like you just don't like RWBY. You haven't actually pointed out any fundamental problems with it."

"Hey, I didn't say it was bad, just that I didn't like it."

It probably shouldn't have surprised me that Cliff called me on that. "No, actually, you did said that it was bad. Or, as you insisted, _not very good_."

"Yeah, which means I don't like it."

"Well, I'm sorry that RWBY isn't a mindless story about a bunch of meatheads who resolve a nonsensical plot with lots of shooting and massive explosions." Another one of those weird Cliff pauses. "Seriously, how the fuck could you like The Expendables?"

"Hey, that movie was awesome!"

"Bullshit! That movie was a steaming pile of shit! And unlike your epic failures of an argument, I could rip that one to shreds."

I decided that I didn't really want to get stuck in a car with a "debating" Cliff, even though pushing his buttons was fun sometimes. In fact, this distraction had nearly caused me to miss the turnoff. "Whatever, back to my original question."

"Which question?" Cliff fumed, sighing deeply.

"Who is Ruby Rose?"

Cliff deadpanned, "The protagonist."

"Yeah, but who is she as a person?"

"Oh, I know what you're asking. She's fifteen, so no. Don't even think about it." I guess this was Cliff's idea of revenge.

"You're the one with a dirty mind if you're thinking that," I pointed out.

"But I never explicitly stated what I was saying, did I?" Cliff retorted. "Therefore, to make the assumption that I was making such an assumption, you would have to be making that assumption as well... or something like that."

We shared a laugh. Just like old times, in a way. "Okay, seriously though, what did you want to know?"

I was about to reply when I saw a blur of something zip by the window. "There."

"Where?"

"Her." I pointed. "Looks like you were right."

"I told you so," Cliff said smugly. "Park here. There's a big fence about fifty metres that way, so she'll almost certainly come back this way."

"How do you know that?" I asked, pulling onto the wide dirt shoulder and putting the car in park. The park brake was broken, so I didn't bother engaging it. It occurred to me that this was probably illegal, but out in the country I'm not sure if anyone would care.

"Google Earth." Cliff opened his door and stepped out of my car, blinking as the sun hit his eyes. I shut off the car and followed him out.

"So..." I began, gesturing to the field.

"She'll come back." This time, he pointed to an approaching blur. "See?"

I pointedly checked my watch, then turned to the new arrival.

"I was wondering when you'd show up."


	6. Finding the Team

_Just a Crazy-Man_: I didn't know you were into RWBY. (For those of you who don't know, Just a Crazy-Man was a big fan of SGD, my epic Stargate fic from a few years back)

_Happy1K1nob1_: *in Arnold Schwarzenegger voice* It is here.

_Darth Cruel_: In my opinion, there's a lot of potential in an inverted SI, and it's something I wish showed up more often. I think I've seen one for Mass Effect, one for Stargate Atlantis, and that's it.

First of all, it turns out somebody else had already explored a premise broadly similar to Emergence. It's called The Power of Dust, it's written by StorSpeaker, and it's way better than this so you should go read it. The big difference is that I'm trying to keep this as mundane and realistic as possible, with us and them clearly separated. And I'm not going into backstory. Yet.

Moving to fewer perspective shifts, toward focusing on one or two characters rather than an ensemble cast. Let me know if you prefer this or more slices. I may also move to longer, less frequent chapters, but not until this arc is finished.

As an aside, Ruby is hard to write. I'm too much of a cynical bastard to accurately portray childlike innocence. That's why she doesn't get enough screen time.

* * *

_**6: Finding The Team**_

**Sam**

"I have to find them!" the red blur screeched as it shot past us. How as she even moving that fast? That shouldn't be humanly possible. In fact, I don't think it is humanly possible.

"Hey!" I shouted at it. "Stop!"

"Ruby!" Cliff called from beside me. "Ruby, stop!"

She kept going, speeding off back into the field. Damn, that girl was fast. "Should we-"

Cliff shook his head. "No point. We'll never catch her."

I took a deep breath. "RUBY! WE HAVE TO TALK!"

"So talk!" I heard a high-pitched voice reply from the field.

"Look, if they're here, you're not going to find them. Not like this!"

"Then are you going to help?"

Me: "No!"

Cliff: "Yes!"

"So come out here and help!"

A pause. "Weiss! Blake! Yang!"

"You're not going to find them that way!" I shouted into the field. "Damn it, Ruby!

I got a shrill shriek for a response. "I have to find them!"

"You'd stand a much better chance if you would fucking listen!" I shouted back.

Cliff tried a different strategy. "Ruby, if they were here, you would have found them already."

She zipped in front of us and stopped, almost appearing right there. Her expression was angry. "What if they can't reply? What if they're injured, or they're hiding, or there's Grimm..."

It occurred to me at that point that Ruby's grey eyes were shining more than usual. Yes, her eyes were always shiny, which hadn't really occurred to me before but now that I thought about it... it was kind of creepy.

"Then we'll find out!" I snapped. "But we have to do this the right way."

"Look, you may be fast," Cliff reasoned. "But that doesn't mean you can search faster. You're going to still be limited by your ability to actually see your friends. I'm going to be generous and say your perception is two to three times better than an Earth baseline human- that's just a guess for the sake of argument. I'd say that means you can search two time faster, but I don't think it scales that way. But you're still inherently limited to a search rate of maybe a few times faster than a normal human, which is pretty god damned slow."

Confused, she asked, "What did you just say?"

"He basically said it won't work."

Ruby slumped to the ground, cradling her head in her hands. "What am I gonna do?"

"Lots," I replied. "We can get the rest of the group in on this, start searching the area. We can ask around and see if anyone's seen them. And we can put out some ads on the internet, too."

A thought occurred to me. I asked Cliff, "Hey, does that guy still do the drones?"

"Mitch? Yeah, he's just built a new one, actually."

"Do you think you can-"

"Maybe. I might have to bring him in, though."

"Don't tell him more than you have to." Seeing his hesitation, I added. "Hey, man, you're probably better at figuring out what to say and what not to say than I am."

"Yeah, it's saying it that's the problem."

"I'm sorry," Ruby said quietly.

"Sorry for what?" I asked.

"Crying like a baby," she replied, standing up.

She was like, what, 15? All this shit must be overwhelming even a girl who fights monsters. Cliff would have something to say about context and norms and shit like that, but I just say, out of her comfort zone, even if her normal comfort zone is somewhere I'd stay the hell away from. This is probably a couple steps past that.

"You're fifteen, you haven't even finished school, and now you've been thrown into another universe and you can't find your closest friends, you're not even sure if you can find them," I summarized. "This is totally acceptable."

"But I'm supposed to be a Huntress! I'm supposed to be brave, and courageous, not sitting down and crying like this!"

"This is an out of context problem, even for a Huntress," I replied, summoning all my movie cliche knowledge. "Besides, you're a Huntress-in-training, right? Nobody expects anyone to get it right the first time."

"Thanks."

"No problem," I replied, smiling.

Cliff's phone rang, and he answered it. "Yeah?"

"Is that Ben?"

"Close. It's Jen."

"Mmm."

"Uh-huh, we found her... Searching, yep... Yeah, we've pretty much came to the same conclusion... Okay, that makes sense, yeah... Well, I'm operating under that assumption as well... Oh, we're going to try to borrow a drone from Mitch... Hmm, good point, we'll have to-... Okay, we can do that... Meet back at Ben's?... Sure."

"We're heading back to Ben's," Cliff stated, sticking his phone back in his pocket.

"What?" Ruby asked.

"We need to get organized, figure out a plan," I told her.

"Oh... right. Okay."

I reassured her, "Look, I know you're anxious. But it's only going to be a couple of hours."

Cliff added, "Essentially, we're trading away a small chance of finding them immediately for a much larger chance of finding them soon. Given that Earth is much safer than Remnant, I think that's a fair tradeoff."

Ruby was quiet. "Yeah. Okay."

* * *

We gathered once again in Ben's apartment. It was definitely too small for this. His kitchen table only had three chairs, leaving me leaning against the fridge, Cliff against the couch, and Isaac on the floor. There was a package of President's Choice cookies on the table, which was quickly disappearing.

"Well, we should probably get down to business," I began. "Finding Ruby's team."

"If they're here," Ruby muttered past her cookies.

"We're assuming they are," I replied. "First step is to organize a search, get back out there and look-"

"No, that's a bad idea," Cliff interrupted immediately.

I glared at him. "Aren't you the one who suggested it?"

"Yeah, but now that I think of it, we actually shouldn't," he self-corrected. "Those fields aren't public land, they're private land. So if we try searching them on foot, we could get arrested for trespassing. And if there's one group of people we don't want in on this, it's the police."

"Fuck the police," I quipped, eliciting a bunch of laughs. I added seriously, "But, no, you're right, we definitely don't want to get arrested. But what can we do?"

"Shouldn't we get the police to help?" Ruby asked between bites of cookie. She'd already eaten most of them, and there were only a few left now.

Cliff just laughed a loud, ironic laugh. "Yeah, that's gonna work out real well. Hey, we're looking for these girls who we have no relation to and don't know anything about. Oh, and a quick Google search shows that they aren't even real. We'd probably end up being charged with trolling the police, if they don't just throw us in the loony bin!"

Ruby blinked. "Uh..."

Isaac was more gentle about it. "Remember when Blake ran off and you tried to find her?"

"How do you- right. Yeah." Ruby nodded.

"It's like that."

"Not really," Cliff said, ignoring the glares we were giving him. "It's not really anything like that. The problem then was with Blake's past. The problem here is that the people we're looking for are fictional characters."

"It's like that."

I shrugged. "Whatever. Bottom line is that we don't want to report this unless we absolutely have to. The police are more likely to hinder than to help."

"Okay," Ruby replied after eating the last cookie. Damn, she can go through those cookies fast!

"What about Search and Rescue?" Isaac asked.

"You're joking, right?" Cliff snapped. "Same problems as the police. Missing persons is out, too. Any official channel, in fact."

"Well, if we can't search ourselves and we can't go through anything official, what do we do?" Ben asked. "I'm not paying for a private investigator and you're all too poor to afford one."

"We still have a few other options," I replied, pausing to actually figure out what those options were.

The first would be to put out "have you seen this person" messages through other ways of communications. Facebook would probably be the best, asking our friends if we've seen these people and to ask if their friends have seen them. Maybe we could misuse Craigslist, too. I don't think they have a missing persons section, but we can just spam and hope for the best. Sadly, this was probably our best shot.

The second was getting a drone from Mitch, but that's Cliff's department. I have no idea how good those would be at looking at the fields where Ruby arrived. So, maybe this would work, maybe not.

The third was to go downtown and ask random people if they had seen any RWBY cosplayers lately, but I don't think that would be very effective.

And, of course, that was assuming they were here at all.

"We're going to ask around on Facebook if anyone has seen them," I announced. "We can make it sound really important-"

"It is important!" Ruby interrupted loudly.

"You'd be surprised what people pass over here," Cliff replied.

"Ruby, do you have any pictures of your team?"

"Of course," she replied. "I have lots!"

"Good. Ben, Jen, Isaac, I want you to pick out some pictures and put up some posts. Put them up on your Facebook, if you've got any other social media, maybe some local forums or the Vancouver Craigslist or something. I know that between the three of you, you'll be able to figure it out."

"Got it."

While Ben, Ruby, Isaac and Jen disappeared into the computer room to figure out the pictures, I raised the issue of the drones with Cliff. Mitch was his friend, not mine. In fact, I thought Mitch was kind of an asshole.

To be fair, I'd only met him once, and I was kind of drunk.

"Cliff, I still think we should do the drones thing if we can," I told him.

"Yeah, I'll text Mitch," he replied, taking out his Galaxy S2 i9100. The reason why I knew exactly what phone he had was kind of funny. I had once mistaken it for an iPhone, and he had taken the next thirty minutes beating the how and why it was not an iPhone into my head. Even still, I forgot most of the details laced into the web of profanity.

A moment later, he received a reply. "Says he finished a Skywalker with a lot of battery capacity just last month. He also says that if he pulls some of those batteries, he can fit in a digital camera that will give us a much better chance of seeing something. Finally, he says that he has to be there to run it."

"Skywalker?" I asked, snickering. Cliff began to explain, but I waved him off. "Nevermind. Does he really have to be there?"

"Well, it kind of is his plane, and it's new, too. I think he wants to use this as a kind of test."

"Isn't he going to ask what we need it for?"

Another round of texts, then Cliff shrugged. "I get the impression that he doesn't care."

"Good. How soon can he do it?"

Another minute of texting, then a sigh. "Next week. When we're all at school."

"That means we have to rely on him alone," I asked. "Do you trust this guy?"

"Do we have a choice?" Cliff replied. "Look, he's willing to do this for free, on his time. I think we may need to trade a certain degree of trust for that."

"Such as?" I asked, then realized that he was talking about what I had just brought up.

"What we're looking for," Cliff replied.

Okay, so he _did_ want to know that. "Tell him we're looking for some of our... friend's friends. Give him physical descriptions only. And tell him to call as soon as he finds anything."

"Got it."

"Well, I don't think he likes the vagueness, but he's willing to go with it." Cliff said after thirty seconds of silence. "His exact words are 'whatevs man jus need excuse wanna try my drone'."

"Hey, Sam," Ben called. "We're done."

"Did you post?"

"Yeah, on all our Facebook, my Twitter, spammed Craigslist and a few others," Ben replied, clearly unhappy about it. "They're probably going to think this is some kind of viral marketing, though."

"We've gotta try, man. We gotta try."

"So, what do we do now?" Ruby asked quietly.

I sighed. "Now we wait."


	7. Answering Questions

School is back in, which means updates are going to be much slower. Expect weekly updates at best.

This chapter is done in a somewhat different style. Let me know if you liked it or if you thought it was awful. Or if you were indifferent to it. I totally did not cut out parts of this chapter to get it out sooner. That definitely did not happen.

Beacon seems to be depicted more like high school than post-secondary, but if my math is correct (and Remnant years are the same length), it would actually start in Grade 12 and end in third year.

By the way, Ruby as a viewpoint character will return soon. I tend to avoid it because I have a lot of trouble writing her in any capacity.

* * *

_**7: Answering Questions**_

**Sam**

"School's a bit different here than it is on Remnant," I explained to Ruby, dropping a plate of cookies in front of her. Jen told me to keep Ruby fed, but she didn't actually specify what to feed her. I read somewhere that Ruby liked cookies, so that's what I gave her.

"But there's still combat school, right?" she asked between mouthfuls of cookie.

"No, not unless you're talking about terrorist camp," I replied.

"Terrorist?"

"Uh, bad people, indoctrination, not here, nevermind." I tried to sneak a cookie from Ruby's plate, and was rewarded with a punch in the shoulder and no cookie. I suppressed a wince. For a 15-year old girl, she could punch _really_ hard.

"No, there's no combat school," I replied, resisting the urge to rub my shoulder. Apparently everyone in RWBY trained to be a badass from childhood or something. "Everyone goes to the same school."

"So you learn combat and math and art?" Ruby asked.

"We, uh, don't learn combat," I replied. _Well, not officially, anyway._

"But how do you... oh, right, no huntsmen or huntresses." Ruby picked up a cookie and paused. "But how do you defend yourselves?"

"Don't have to. This is a very safe country."

She seemed to accept that as an answer. "Okay, so what's school like?"

I was at a loss to describe it. How do you describe school? I mean, ever since I'd graduated, I'd compared everything to high school, either favorably or not so favorably. And before that, I'm sure I'd done the same with elementary school. "It's, well, it's school. You go to class, make friends, do stuff, and eventually you finish it and move on."

"Oh, okay." Ruby said,

"I'm kind of confused," she added after a brief pause. "You said you finished school, but you also said you're still in it."

"That's because I'm in university now," I explained. "I finished high school. That's the last part of public education, grade eight or ten to grade twelve. That's all free and mandatory- government backed. After you graduate from that, you can choose to go on to college or university, or you can just try to get a job."

"Grade?"

"Uh, public school goes from grade one to grade twelve," I explained. "Technically, kindergarden is before that, though, and that's also part of it. I don't know how old I was when I was in grade one, but I turned eighteen in grade twelve."

Ruby's eyes lit up- and in her case it was literal. "Oh, so high school is like Signal and university is like Beacon!"

Beacon was where the show was set, but what the hell was Signal? I shrugged. "I guess."

"Well, Earth is not that different then." Ruby paused. "Well, the schools aren't, anyway."

"Nope, I guess not," I replied, leaning back. "Anything else you wanted to ask?"

"Actually, yeah," Ruby replied. "I keep hearing this word around you guys. _F__uck_. What does that mean?"

"Aw, fuck," I muttered, then realized that I'd just sworn in front of a 15-year old girl. Then I realized that I'd been doing it constantly for the past three days. I cleared my throat, suddenly awkward.

"Well, uh, it's like this..."

* * *

**Jen**

Ruby was already awake when I got up. Ben had already gone to work- he was opening today. Groggily, I poured myself a bowl of cereal. Lucky Charms, blergh.

I started pulling out another bowl for the girl when she interrupted me."Oh, I already ate."

Curious, I asked, "What did you eat?"

In response, she pointed to a bowl of strawberries, which was now empty. "I hope you don't mind."

"No, no, it's fine," I replied. "Ben and I don't even like them. Only Sam eats them."

I wolfed down my cereal, then dumped the milk still left in the bowl down the drain and put the bowl in the dishwasher. There was something about her outfit that had been bugging me as I ate. I asked her, "What do the crosses mean?"

I mean, I knew what they meant here, but I wondered what they meant on Remnant.

Ruby fingered the silver adornments. "These?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's a symbol my family used."

"That's it?" I asked, disappointed.

"Well, I mean, they're from somewhere, but I don't know where," Ruby replied. "Maybe Qrow knows. Sorry."

"That's okay," I replied. Then something occurred to me. "But you might not want to wear those here."

"Why not?"

"The cross is typically connected with Christianity, one of the belief systems on Earth," I replied, choosing my words carefully. "It's not a cult or anything, but it would be unusual for a non-Christian to wear crosses, especially as prominently as you do."

"Oh. Okay."

"Speaking of clothes, you need to get some more."

Ruby pouted.

"You don't wear the same thing all the time, do you?"

"No," she replied sheepishly.

"I picked up some stuff that looked your size," I told her. "You probably won't like it, but we can go shopping for something else later today."

"Well, okay."

* * *

**Cliff**

"You'd be surprised how familiar the White Fang situation is to us."

"I thought you said you didn't have any Faunas?" Ruby asked, sitting across the table from me. I must admit, she looked strange in the red hoodie and black jeans.

I nodded. "We don't. But that's not to say we didn't have similar situations."

Without waiting for Ruby, I continued, "The White Fang used to be like Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. Now it's more like, say, Hamas."

"What."

I sighed. Of course. With no context, it would be meaningless.

"To understand this, we're going to have to go way back," I explained. "This is the year 2014. I think our years are approximately the same as yours. Remember that, because I'm going to be using our date system."

"Uh, okay."

I brought up a picture of a black man. Specifically, Samuel L. Jackson. "Okay, what's this person? Race, I mean."

"Human."

"More specifically."

"What do you mean more specifically?" she asked, genuinely confused.

Which made sense. With the Faunas around, that divided the population of Remnant cleanly down one line. An actual biological distinction that creates a clean line. Why draw any others? We all liked to divide into us and them, but our divisions were much more arbitrary. They had something clean and solid to work with.

"This is a black man. He has dark skin and other traits that are common among certain groups of people."

"So?"

"For a long time, that mattered. And maybe it still does."

"Why? That's so silly!"

I chuckled briefly. "Yeah, it is. But until the mid-20th century- that's the 1900s- black people were considered inferior and mistreated."

"That's horrible!"

I continued. "In the United States- big country just south of us- they'd brought black slaves from Africa for working sugar cane and cotton fields. I think they used the whole race thing as a justification to keep slaves-"

"That's horribler!"

"Yeah, our world doesn't exactly have a glorious past," I admitted. "But anyway, fast forward to the 1950s- maybe it was the 1960s. African-Americans have been free for half a century, but still don't have the same rights as white or other races. Having to sit in a certain spot on the bus, or not being allowed into a restaurant, for example."

"Then there's something called the Civil Rights Movement." Which I know close to fuck all about. "And there's this guy, Martin Luther King, and he goes around the country, protesting and making speeches. He goes like 'I have a dream' and there's something about a freedom riders bus or something..."

Ruby looks totally confused. I ask her, "Are you following?"

"Sort of."

"Good enough." I was probably overloading the poor girl with info. Info that I didn't have much of.

"Basically, after this movement, the black people in the US get more or less equal treatment, at least in the eyes of the law. During the next several decades, there's a big push for equality in the rest of the world and it usually works."

I sigh. Wow, I butchered that. "Just... look up Martin Luther King. I'm sure someone else can explain better."

"Okay," Ruby replied. "I still don't get why you would treat someone badly because of the colour of their skin."

"Because..." How do you explain it? "Why do some look down upon the Faunas? It's the same dynamic. Maybe the differences are more subtle here, but the idea is the same."

She seemed to accept that, at least for the moment. "Well, okay, I guess. But what's Hamas?"

"Okay, Hamas." I decided to be simpler this time. "We don't have to go back that far- well, supposedly this goes back to ancient times, but the recent tension only started this century."

"Uh-huh."

"We've got two groups of people, the Israelis and the Palestinians." I think those are the right terms- they're the ones I always hear, anyway. "They're from the same piece of land- which is now divided into Israel and Palestine. For a long time, it was just Palestine. Then, after World War Two-"

"You've had _two_ world wars?" she asked, once again reminding me I was talking to an alien, however human (and adorable!) she might look.

"Yeah, again, we're hardly paragons, but I'll talk about that later. Anyway, the Israelis were given part of their ancestral homeland and right away there was a war to establish their independence. After that, they started marginalizing the Palestinians, pushing in and taking land that was supposed to be kept part of Palistan."

"Why would they do that?"

I shrugged. "Because they wanted it, probably. Okay, then this Palestinian rebel group crops up. It's called Hamas. They like to launch rockets into Israel- that's the Israeli part of this land- and kill civilians. In response, the Israelis launch airstrikes into Palestine. It's usually tense but not violent, but it's been heating up recently."

That was a gross, gross simplification, but I'm trying to make this understandable to someone with zero background.

"So who's the good guys?" Ruby asked after a moment of thought.

"There are none. We've got two sides who are both right and both wrong. And neither is willing to back down."

"But they can't both be evil, can they?" That was surprisingly naive, even for Ruby.

"You'd be quick to label them, but it doesn't work that way," I replied. "Look, I don't know, maybe Remnant really does have good and evil. But here, everything is relative. Everything is shades of grey. Start thinking in terms of cost/benefit, power and wealth, gain versus loss."

"What?"

I sighed. "We all do things for certain reasons, some more logical than others. Morality is a merely a subjective judgement of the value of those actions."

"I don't get it," Ruby replied, blinking. "How can you not believe in good and evil?"

I sighed again. How could she? Childish innocence, I guess, untainted by cynicism. "Okay, let's go back to the terrorism thing. Say I strap a bomb to my chest, walk into a crowded shopping mall, and blow myself up, along with fifty civilians."

Ruby's eyes widened. "That's horrible! Why would you do that!"

"Would you consider that action evil?"

"Yes!" Ruby shouted.

I shook my head. "But from my perspective, I'm a noble warrior fighting against the oppression of my people. It's a common tactic. Kill some civilians, make them pay and think twice."

"How can you think that's right?" I think Ruby's getting pissed off at me.

"I'm not saying it's right," I corrected firmly. "What I'm saying is that the world is a lot more complicated than you think."

She blinked.

I sighed. "Forget it. I'm just a cynical bastard who's bad at explaining stuff."

She walked away.

I spent the next five minutes pondering the fact that I had just lectured Ruby Rose on morality.

* * *

**Jen**

I was exhausted and hungry after a long night at work and a longer day at college. Then I had to wait for the SkyTrain because of maintenance and... yeah, I wanted some comfort food. I stepped into the apartment, tossed my backpack on the couch, strode over to the kitchen and threw open the fridge.

It was nearly empty. There were some condiments, a mostly-empty jug of milk, and a few slices of bread. That was it. The freezer was almost as bad, with all the frozen pizzas, most of the chicken strips, and all but one of the TV dinners gone.

We'd just gone shopping a few days ago! I thought supplies were getting a bit low yesterday, but I figured we'd be okay for a few more days. We didn't really eat that much.

Sighing, I pulled out the TV dinner. Salisbury Steak... more like Salisbury Slab of Shit. And it wasn't even Swanson, this was no name. I called, "Ben, what happened to the food?"

"It got eaten," he called from the computer room.

Sometimes, communicating with Benjamin was an exercise in frustration. The problem was that he answered your question directly and simply, without actually considering what you meant rather than what you said.

"Did Isaac visit?" I asked more precisely as I unboxed the TV dinner.

"Yeah."

"Did he eat the food?" I placed the TV dinner in the microwave and gave it two minutes.

"Some of it."

"What happened to the rest of it?"

"Ruby."

I turned to the girl, who waved at me from the couch. "Hi!"

"Ruby, how could you eat most of our food in two days?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just that I was hungry and I guess with all the stress I just wanted to eat! And then all the cookies were gone!"

"I'm not mad," I assured her. "I meant, how could you eat so much? You're not very big. No offence."

"I don't know," she replied, thinking. "Usually I don't eat that much. But I was still hungry even after I ate, so I kept eating."

"Hmm," I muttered. Overeating was sometimes observed as a psychological response to stress. "You could be overeating because of the stress. You're probably a lot less active here, too, so if you aren't careful you could, well, get fat."

"I've actually lost a little weight," Ruby admitted sheepishly.

What? I was going to reply, but the microwave beeped at me. I pulled out the plastic tray of food and set it on the table, grabbing a knife and fork out of the drawer to dig in with. It was spongy, tasteless, and lukewarm, but I didn't care.

As I ate, I thought about it. Remnant humans are quite a bit stronger and faster than we are, even without semblances or aura or anything fancy. I figured that at least basic principles like conservation of energy worked over there, which meant that you could not get that for free. To do what they do, they would need to burn a lot more energy than we do. Which means a faster metabolism and with it more food intake. With that in mind, their food was probably a lot richer than ours.

Well, probably. I only just started taking college level biology- I had to make up for what I screwed up in high school first.

"So, I'm sorry about the food thing..."

"Don't worry about it. We can go shopping tomorrow after I'm finished school, and you can pick out what you like."

* * *

**Isaac**

"So I know you probably don't want to see RWBY again," I said to... well, Ruby. I still couldn't believe that was actually Ruby Rose sitting across from me, but over the past week I'd kind of gotten used to seeing her every time I visited Benjamin. I had to focus on starting classes, which was hard, so I'd only made it out here twice. "But I'm wondering how much you remember from, well, in the series."

I quickly added, "This isn't because I'm curious. I think it might help us figure out how you got here, and maybe where your friends are too."

"Oh, okay."

"What's the last thing you remember before you ended up here?"

She just stared at me. Then I realized she was thinking. Finally, after a minute, she replied, "I'm not sure. I think there was bright lights, and people yelling, and I remember Ozpin was there... I think. And Torchwick and the White Fang. But I don't know how everything goes together. It's like someone mixed all the memories up and took out some of them."

That wasn't useful at all. We'd all assumed until now that she dropped out where Volume 2 was at now and came here, but she could be from anywhere in the series. Even in the future. Which had some interesting implications for canon and divergence and events and stuff. "Hmm. Do you remember fighting Torchwick in the mech suit?"

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Mech suit?"

Okay, so definitely not caught up. Hmm... wasn't the volume split on a term break? I asked, "How many terms have you spent at Beacon?"

"One," she replied. "We were between terms."

So, between Volume 1 and Volume 2 then.

Awkwardly, Ruby asked, "So, uh, the people who made RWBY, did they make anything else?"

"Rooster Teeth? Oh yeah, they made lots of stuff. I like Red vs Blue, maybe you'll find it interesting."

* * *

**Sam**

We gathered in Ben's apartment once again. The mood was sombre, to put it nicely. We were all tired- not only were we doing a search, but half of us were going back to school, too. For Cliff and Isaac, it was their first time at their institution.

"Well, it's been one week," Ruby said sadly.

"Yep. Three days of hell at BCIT," Cliff said.

"It was not that bad," Isaac argued.

"I still say you should have gone to UBC," I interjected smugly, even though my experience so far had been... mixed.

Ben stuck out his tongue. "Hah, when you guys are doing boring stuff I'm getting money."

"Guys..." Jen muttered.

"Ah, right, the search for RWBY," I announced, clapping my hands together. "Cliff?"

"Yeah?"

I waited for him to explain, then reminded him, "Mitch and the drones."

"Oh, right," Cliff replied. "He did two passes through the area, then a third one on the most likely parts to be sure. Found some interesting stuff- a couple lesbians kissing, a hobo fight, and some whackjob burning shapes into the field- but no Weiss, Blake, or Yang."

"Damn," I muttered. To be honest, I wasn't expecting that to work out anyway. "Ben, what about those ads?"

"Nope."

"Nothing?"

He shrugged. "Well, we got a few trolls-"

"What kind of trolls?" I asked. Maybe what he thought was trolls was actually what we were looking for. You never know with Ben.

"There wasn't anything like what we were looking for," Jen clarified for him.

I sighed deeply. "Well, does anyone have any other ideas?"

There was silence. I guess nobody did.

Ruby broke the silence, eyes sad and downcast. "We're giving up, aren't we?"

Cliff stated bluntly, "Yep."

"No. Don't think of it as giving up," I reassured her. "Think of it as extending the search to a long-term project."

Isaac added, "Maybe they weren't transported instantly. Maybe they're somewhere far away. Maybe they're still on Remnant trying to find a way to get to you."

I clarified, "We might have to wait for your team to come to you instead of going to them."

"Wait," Isaac interrupted. "There's still one thing we can try."


	8. Go To The Source

_Jlargent_: I don't know what any of those shows are. Unlike most RWBY fans, I don't watch anime at all. But I'm enjoying RWBY a lot, so I might start.

_LiveandSound_: I was actually looking for one like this, and when I couldn't find it, wrote it myself. That's why I write a lot of my fics.

_mikel2814_: Yes, but this doesn't affect the viewpoint characters, since they are college students. It may affect the plot in the future. This is very much a fic where Real Life Writes The Plot... and explaining why would be full of spoilers.

_Happy1K1nob1_: The chapter title is a big hint. On Spacebattles, I actually post chapter titles one chapter ahead, but not here. It's Go To The Source... but you're probably already reading this through.

_Guest 2.0_: The actual lines in question are "Welcome to a world of new solutions/Welcome to a world of bloody evolution" which I changed to "Welcome to a world of disillusion/Welcome to a world of bloody revolution." That's because this is Earth, not Remnant.

Playing with other viewpoint characters, including Ruby Rose (who's hard to write). This chapter may have ended up lighter and fluffier than was originally intended. Lazy fight scene because I'm lazy.

Bonus points to anyone who figures out the fanfic Isaac is talking about (it's mostly based on a real one) and the book Cliff gave Ruby.

Also, I don't know Rooster Teeth well, so messages and such may be pretty off.

* * *

**Isaac**

"And what would that be?" Sam asked.

"We go to the source," I replied simply.

"What source?" Cliff asked.

"The guys who made the show in the first place," I explained.

He raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think they would know anything?"

"I read this fanfic once, it was a Mass Effect fanfic. It was an inverted self-insert where Shepard ended up on Earth and the self-insert found her. Most of the fic was this epic road trip to get her to Bioware headquarters to find some answers. Then there was a portal back to Mass Effect."

"We can't exactly drive down to RT headquarters, Isaac," Cliff stated. "It'd be expensive, and since Ruby is an unperson on Earth we'd have to smuggle her across the border. Not to mention that we'd miss a lot of school and, in Ben's case, work."

He paused, presumably for what he thought was dramatic effect. "Besides, there's no guarantee they'll be able to help us at all. That was a carefully crafted fanfic. This is reality, where nothing works out."

"I think it's worth noting that Ruby Rose is standing right there," Sam interjected. "At this point, the distinctions between reality and fiction are kind of vague."

"True," Cliff admitted. "But I don't think we should risk, you know, getting thrown in Gitmo. And, you know, getting Ruby taken by the government."

"What if we did turn her over?" Ben asked.

"If we're gonna pursue the movie logic, then they'll probably lock her up and study her for science or something. I don't think I could live with myself if that happened, even if they don't kill us."

"But if you take the movie logic all the way, there would be a badass escape and no guilt on anyone's part," I argued.

"Maybe," Cliff allowed. "But like I've said, this isn't a movie. This is real life. Which means lots and lots of bureaucratic hoops to jump through, a media circus, five minutes of fame, fear and infamy, and at the end nobody gets anything resembling a life."

"I feel safer with you guys," Ruby said.

"Don't worry, we're not going to turn you over to anyone," Jen reassured her, giving everyone else a hard look.

"So, what do you think we should do?" Sam asked me.

"Well, we should at least send them an email," I reply. "We can describe what happened, put in a few pictures, maybe get a little video of Ruby introducing herself, then we send it and hope someone reads it."

"Without any security?" Ben questioned.

Cliff shrugged. "Real life, remember? NSA's looking for terrorists and foreign agents, not suspicious fan mail."

"Yeah, I agree with Cliff," I agreed. "I think it's safe."

"Then let's do it," Sam directed. He unplugged his laptop from its charging cord and took it from the spot on Ben's counter, placing it on the table in front of Ruby. It took him about thirty seconds to launch Thunderbird and create a new message.

"Cliff, do you want to write the message?" he asked.

Cliff glared at Sam. "I do creative writing, not business communications."

"I'll do it," I said. I leaned forward and started typing.

_You'll never believe what happened. We were walking through Vancouver when we found someon we thouhtg was a RWBY cos-player. That seemed kinda aswemon so we said hi and then found out she was relaly Ruby Rose! It sounds crazy but its true. Shes convinced us withlack of knowledge of earth and skills that shouldn't be possible. I've attached a video of her._

_This is real and we need your help. We cant find her teammates and we dont now how to get her back to Remannt. Maybe you can hepl us? I mean maybe its not coincindent that u made this story and there is realy remannt and now shes hear yeah?_

"God, Isaac, you suck at writing," Cliff muttered. I decided to be a nice guy and ignore him.

"It's the video that matters," Sam insisted. He pushed me aside and brought up webcam software. Then he moved aside and motioned for Ruby to sit down.

"What do I do?"

"Just explain the situation as you see it." He clicked the record button.

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

I did the best I could at recording the message. I introduced who I was, where I was from, who I knew, what happened on Remnant. I couldn't say how I got here, though. I know it would help a lot if I could and I felt bad even though Isaac said it was fine. After I was done, Isaac added some of the pictures we took with Crescent Rose and sent the message.

I wasn't really sure about what Isaac said about being able to get help from the people who made RWBY here. I guess maybe they had some kind of connection to Remnant and that was where they got the story. But Cliff said that just because we were a story here didn't mean there was any connection, it could just be a quantum coincidence thingamajig.

I hoped they would know something and be able to help me. That would be good, right?

I couldn't sleep that night.

I saw my team again, in my thoughts. And I thought I could remember them yelling, me being pulled away, panicked looks... Weiss reaching for me, Yang yelling, Blake doing something. I don't know if it was a memory or a nightmare. But it felt scary and real.

I got pancakes again for breakfast, and I ate a lot of them. I guess what Jen said was true, or close enough, because I needed to eat a lot before I wasn't hungry anymore. Then I waited and read a book that Cliff said I should read. It was written in Valic, but apparently Valic is called English here. The book was about something called a submarine and everyone had funny names and the main character was mad so he was stealing the submarine or something and it didn't make any sense.

It was mid-afternoon the next day, a Sunday, when Sam finally got a message back. He didn't read it, and told Ben instead, who told Jen, who told me. An hour later, everyone was there, and Isaac opened the message.

* * *

**Isaac**

I read the message again, swearing quietly under my breath.

_Awesome cosplay and roleplay, guys. Best I've seen yet :D_

Two short sentences of nope.

"So, is that it now?" Ruby asked quietly.

"No, fuck that, we're not done yet," Sam insisted after a moment of pause. "To convince this Monty guy, we're gonna need proof. Irrefutable proof."

"Like what?" I asked. "We already sent pictures. We even sent a short video of Ruby herself explaining the situation. I mean, that should have been convincing-"

"This isn't Mass Effect," Cliff commented snarkily. "You can do that pretty easily. And remember, reality is unrealistic. Going from anime to reality, nobody's guaranteed to look the same. Ruby may look like Ruby, but she might not exactly match everyone's mental image of her. So a vaguely Ruby vlogging is hardly conclusive evidence."

"Well, it should have been enough for them to go off of," I offered. I mean, she looked and acted like Ruby Rose. What else did they want? "And maybe they could ask about it some more?"

"And why would they even think that this was real?" Cliff retorted. "What's more likely, Isaac? Some fans got together to do the best cosplay ever, or Ruby Rose actually ended up here?"

"If they already knew that-"

"Damn it, Cliff, you're assuming that they know anything at all!" Cliff shouted at me. "Drop that assumption. Drop that bullshit assumption right goddamn now."

"You shouldn't swear in front of Ruby," Jen said, but I don't think Cliff heard her.

"Guys," Sam interrupted. "Guys, calm down."

"I'm not assuming too much, you're just refusing to consider that other people might be able to help us!" I shout back, anger beginning to boil.

"Fuck you!" Cliff yelled. I backed away and found myself against the counter with a pissed off Cliff about to drive his fist into my face.

Then Ruby stepped between us, pushing us apart with ease. "Why are you fighting?"

"Because Cliff is an asshole!" I shouted, finally sick and tired of dealing with his shit.

"Because Isaac is a moron!" Cliff roared back at me.

"You're friends, aren't you? You're bickering like silly children!" Was I being lectured by Ruby Rose? This was definitely activating some strange portions of my brain, some more pleasant than others.

"Isaac, you have to understand that it's hard to believe that all this is real. When I came here, I couldn't believe it was real, and I went through it."

She turned to Cliff. "Cliff, you have to assume that these people know what's happening and just don't want to tell anyone until you know for sure that they don't."

Ruby stepped back. "Now apologize and hug."

"Seriously?"

She folded her arms. "Yes."

Cliff sighed.

I sighed.

He drew me into a manly bear-hug and pounded me on the back. That hurt, but oddly not as much as where Ruby pushed against my sternum. "Sorry, man."

"Hey, we're all stressed. Burned out. It's been a busy week."

"No shit."

There was a pregnant pause. Finally, I pointed and said quietly, "Tell me that's not Ruby Rose."

Cliff sighed. "I'm not the one who needs convincing."

I glared at him, "Then figure out how to convince _them_."

Cliff waved his hand. "Well that's easy. Who can fight like Ruby?"

I glared at him. Seriously, why didn't he just say that earlier?

"I am an awesome fighter!" Ruby said enthusiastically, miming some fighting actions. Did she just go from mature leader mode to kid in the space of thirty seconds

"Nobody. Well, nobody on Earth," Cliff continued, ignoring her. "We film Ruby doing her thing. That's pretty hard to refute."

"It could still be a fake," Ben muttered.

"What's more likely? Nobodies with a massive CGI budget or Ruby Rose actually being here?" Cliff asked, then replied to himself, "Actually, it's still the CGI. But it's worth a shot."

"Agreed," Sam concluded. "Ben, get your camera and tripod. Let's do this."

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

"Wonderful, an overgrown, abandoned field," Cliff muttered as Ben fiddled with the camera.

I'd changed back into my fighting outfit and I was carrying Crescent Rose again. I was Ruby Rose and I had to look like Ruby Rose.

"Okay, so Sam and Jen are setting up targets," Isaac explained. "You need to fight them like you would the Grimm. Use your weapon- transforming it if you can- and your semblance, and if you can show it, your Aura too. Ben will film the whole thing, and hopefully that will convince them that you're the real deal."

"Ammo," Cliff mentioned.

"What about it?" I asked.

"You probably won't be able to get any more here," he replied. "Maybe you can get something that will work, but it won't be exactly the same. And if Crescent Rose breaks, you might not be able to fix it either."

I ignored that he called my precious _it_ and focused on the rest of what he had to say. I guess it made sense. With no Dust or anything like it, I wouldn't have anything to work with.

"So I shouldn't use Crescent Rose?" I asked.

Isaac told me, "No, you have to use Crescent Rose, that's practically part of who you are. Just don't use too much ammo."

"Targets are ready!" Sam shouted from the other side of the field, before sprinting toward us with Jen behind him. It took them a while. I guess Earth humans are just slow.

"Ben, are you rolling?" Sam asked, moving behind him.

After a brief pause and a beeping noise, he replied, "I am now."

"Isaac?"

Isaac stepped in front of the camera and did this goofy wave. "Hi, I'm Isaac, with me are Cliff and Jen, with Sam and Ben behind the camera. Say hi, guys."

"Hi."

"Hey."

"Okay, Ruby, step out and stand over here, please."

I did what Isaac said, smiling and waving at the camera. It wasn't natural for me, not like it would be for Weiss or Pyrrha. It was making me nervous, but I was already kind of numb just from being here. "Hi, I'm Ruby Rose!"

"Ruby is going to demonstrate that she's actually the real Ruby by doing stuff that's impossible for normal people to do on Earth."

"No CGI, no wires, no special effects," Cliff added.

"No, none of that. Everything you're about to see is real."

"Ruby," Sam nodded to me. I nodded back.

Even though it was just wooden targets, fighting was a blur. I always remembered the feelings way more than what I actually did. I just kind of settled into a natural rhythm, I guess. Uncle Qrow said that was normal for any really good fighter, which made me feel good and proud.

I started by zipping toward the targets using my semblance to go really fast. I remember blowing one to pieces with a bullet, and shattering another one by hitting it with the back end of Crescent Rose. I remember leaping into the air and propelling myself up and dropping down on one of the targets, protecting myself with my Aura. I remember shattering at least three of them with Crescent Rose. It was quick and it was easy, nothing like hunting Grimm at all, but I had to pretend they were Grimm so it would look right.

When I finished, I stepped back in front of the camera, struck a pose with Crescent Rose, and took a bow. My impromptu audience was speechless.

"Well, that was pretty fucking impressive," Sam finally said. "Let's just hope those guys are just as impressed."


	9. You Have Your Answer

Short chapter, I know. I racked my brains for days trying to figure out how to extend this chapter, and I just couldn't. I thought about doing more explanations of Earth, but I think we've had enough infodump for now. I thought about expanding on dealing with RT, but there's not much more to say. I thought about combining it with the next chapter, but it just doesn't flow right.

On the bright side, Chapter 10 will follow very, very quickly.

I know this fic has been about as action-packed as a sack of potatoes, but to be fair the description should have given that away. It's not really an action story, which is kind of a departure for me as a writer as well.

Also, bonus points to anyone who can come up with a better acronym for what is currently Team SICBJ, pronounced "Sick Bitch".

* * *

_**9: You Have Your Answer**_

**Sam**

"So, what if there's nothing we can do?" I asked after Ruby had went to bed. And by went to bed, I mean passed out on the couch. The rest of us quietly (okay, not so quietly) moved to the computer room and shut the door behind us.

I should probably take a moment to describe Ben's insane server room. It was once a decent bedroom, but now it looks like something you'd see in a decent-sized tech business. There's two big racks on one wall, both filled with lots of servers and other crap with lots of blinking lights. Two computer stations, both with multiple monitors. A workbench covered in bits of computer. Extra towers, monitors, and laptops crammed in empty spaces and in bins and shelves. And cables, cables everywhere, although they're mostly tied up against the ceiling or behind equipment.

Once, I had asked Cliff how Ben powered all this crap, and he told me that this is why Ben didn't have a functional dryer. I'm still not sure if he was joking or not.

Ben and Jen took their usual chairs, Isaac sat on the floor, Cliff took the extra chair, and I sat on the workbench. That got me a disapproving look from Ben.

Ben began, "Then... that's a good question, isn't it?"

Isaac insisted, "We can't just stop."

"What are we gonna do, Isaac?" Cliff replied exasperatedly. "There's five of us, we've got fuck all resources between us, and we don't know what we're doing. We're not exactly the most resourceful bunch, either. There's not a lot we _can_ do."

He paused dramatically, or what he thought was dramatically, anyway. "I hate to be that guy, but we're also taking a lot of risks to help someone who is a complete stranger who we only have a vague idea of the intentions and capabilities of. Every step we take increases that risk. That's financial risk, risk of getting in trouble with the law, and, eventually possibly the risk of getting killed."

"That's dark," Jen muttered.

"Well, you should keep going if you're in hell," Isaac quoted.

Cliff shot him a look. "The quote is 'If you're going through hell, keep going.' Winston Churchill, IIRC."

"Did you just-"

"Yeah, I did."

"This is serious, though," Jen interrupted. "We need to figure out what we can do and what we're going to do."

"Like a contingency plan," Cliff said. "Figure out what our possible courses of action are, then which course we're going to take."

"Yeah."

"Okay, what are our possible courses of action?" I asked.

"Option one, we dump Ruby on the street and pretend nothing ever happened," Cliff suggested, before quickly adding. "Okay, I'll admit, that's pretty heartless, even for me."

"I'm not even sure if that would work," Isaac added. "She might just come back, like a cat."

"I thought Blake was the cat," Ben pointed out, missing the point completely.

"I think we can all agree we're not going to go down that road," I concluded. "What else can we do?"

"Dump her on the proper authorities," Cliff suggested next. "Again, not a course of action I would necessarily recommend, but I feel it's necessary to put it out there."

Isaac said, "Yeah, there's a lot of problems with that."

"Well, maybe," Jen added. "We could teach her about our world first, build up a cover identity. Instead of taking Ruby Rose the fictional character to social services, we take Ruby... Jones the homeless orphan to social services. I mean, I don't like it, for a lot of reasons, but it's a possibility."

"I don't want to do that without talking to Ruby first," I assured her. "I think that's the first thing we can say is actually an option, though it's not really a good one."

"Should we be writing this down?" Isaac asked.

"This isn't a class," I pointed out. "Okay, what else could we do?"

"Keep going the way we were going," Cliff suggested again. "Keep Ruby here, keep searching. Don't stop, just continue."

"How long can we keep that up?" Ben asked.

Cliff replied, "Honestly, not very long. We're all busy with our own lives, and we've exhausted the easiest avenues that are most likely to produce results. We could try other things, but it's gonna take time and effort we don't have."

Isaac glared at him. "Effort? This is RWBY we're talking about, man!"

"A poor choice of words on my part. I meant resources."

"Okay, so we can't keep searching?" I half-asked, half-concluded.

"Not if we want to continue our own lives, no," Cliff answered, shaking his head. "And I'm not prepared to drop everything, not even for the Ruby Rose."

"So, what do we do with Ruby?" I asked.

"She could keep staying here," Cliff suggested. Seriously, he's like a suggestion machine at this point.

"We're-" Ben began, but Jen cut him off.

"Perfectly happy to have her here indefinitely," she said, shooting Ben a look.

"Where else could she go?" I asked.

"Maybe relatives or friends, but I think it's better that we don't tell a lot of people," Isaac offered.

"Agreed," I agreed.

"So, do we put her in school?" Isaac asked.

"What school?"

"I mean when it comes back," Isaac corrected himself.

"It might be a good idea, yeah," Cliff agreed. "Gives her exposure to our world, and, more cynically, keeps her off our backs."

"Isn't that a bit unsafe, throwing her into that environment?" Jen asked.

"Two to three times stronger than an Earth human, at the low end. Probably more, actually. She's not going to have any problems."

"Well, that's the problem. I mean, fitting in and such. Not looking like, well, Ruby Rose."

"Lots of weird people in high school," Cliff pointed out. "Also, refuge in audacity. As long as she doesn't whip out Crescent Rose in the middle of class or something stupid like that, everyone's going to dismiss any similarities as coincidental."

"So, we should try to get her into school," I finished. "Okay, how are we gonna do that?"

Cliff shrugged. "Can't be that hard. Explaining some misunderstanding, forged paperwork, hell, we could probably just show up and get her lost in the system."

"So, in the event we don't get a response, or we get one that's useless to us, we're going to keep educating Ruby on the weird and wonderful world of Earth, keep her here, and eventually put her in a normal school."

"And hopefully think of something," Cliff added. Although we hadn't actually discussed it openly, it was possible that Ruby would be stuck here forever.

"Yeah, that. We agreed?"

There was a chorus of nods. Wait, I don't think that's possible.

"Good. That's it for tonight. See you all tomorrow."

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

I sat in the circle of people as Isaac opened the message and read it aloud to everyone.

_I'm going to assume you're telling the truth and this is real, because it is kind of awesome and if that video was fake it was really good. I kind of want to believe it, to be honest. Unfortunately, we created RWBY from our own ideas influenced by others, and we didn't get it from a magical portal or anything like that. This is just as much a shock to us as it is to you, and there's nothing we can do. We don't know anything about actually getting stuff from here to Remnant unless you're talking about Poser, and we definitely don't have a handy portal in the basement. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but we don't know any more about this situation than you do._

"You have your answer," Sam quietly said to me.

"You owe me fifty bucks," I heard Cliff whisper to Isaac. It seemed wrong, but right. With all this happening, they were still doing that... but so did we.

I looked down, sad about the message. "Does this mean I'm not going home?"

Sam shook his head. "Probably not, no."

"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do to find my team?" I pleaded. I was hoping they would be here, at least, then I wouldn't be so along.

Sam sighed, a deep, stressed-out sigh. "Not a hell of a lot, even if they're here at all."

I guess they might not have come here. I think that's better, maybe, because then there's someone fighting the bad guys on Remnant even though I'm gone. "Oh."

"For what it's worth, Ruby, I'm sorry."

And for some reason, I was too.


	10. Two Worlds, Two Lives

Real Life Writes The Plot. Setting something in the real world (or as close to it as possible) means that you have to work with real world events, some of which can be worked into the story in interesting ways (Donetsk, ISIS, basically all the world burning stuff) and some of which are a right pain in the ass. The original plan was to show Ruby in an Earth school after failing to get her home, but I forgot that there probably wouldn't be school for another month. So you get this instead.

This is kind of an epilogue to the first arc, but I'm not labelling it as such because reasons. As such, the style is much different than what came before. Let me know if you like it or not.

More author's notes at the end. Well, not the end end, that's the teaser.

* * *

_**10: Two Worlds, Two Lives**_

Ruby had to learn a lot and learn it fast. Fortunately, in addition to her fighting prowess, she was a quick learner.

She learned about all the countries. They were like Remnant's kingdoms, but they didn't use that word because it had connotations. She didn't memorize them all, of course. There were way too many. Remnant had four. Earth had hundreds. But she remembered a few names and a few things about them. They were in Canada. The powerful country to the south was the United States. The other superpower was Russia. There was the United Kingdom. France. Germany. Ukraine. Japan. Israel. Nigeria. Malaysia. So many.

She learned about race, religion, and the other lines that divided the people of Earth. With seven _billion_ people and hundreds of countries, she was expecting more variety. After all, Remnant had a lot of the same stuff, and it was all mixed together in four kingdoms. But the difference was that everything formed not-so-neat lines and people divided themselves along them. Even though they weren't that different, they found reasons to hate.

She learned about war and conflict. How there was still fighting in the world. How wars spanned the globe and killed millions. Horrific stories of cities being bombed to the ground, people just murdered by advancing armies. The names they gave were too nice. World War I. World War II. Vietnam. Gulf War. On Remnant, war was something that was fought between armies on the battlefield. But on Earth, it happened everywhere, happened to everyone. In some parts of the world, it was still happening. Gaza. Syria. Ukraine.

She learned what powered Earth instead of Dust. Gunpowder was used like Dust in weapons, but that was all it did. To actually make their technology work, they had to use other stuff. The big advance was the Industrial Revolution, when they started burning coal and using steam. Then they started using oil, which was really valuable and wars were fought over it. And then, just fifty years ago, they started splitting the atom. She didn't realize atoms could be split. Maybe even the scientists on Remnant didn't know that. There were problems with everything, and even the Earth people agreed that Dust was probably better.

She learned about Earth's culture. Or rather, cultures. With everyone different and spread out, everyone had their own take on things. There was so much to take in. So many books, videos, comics, music. So much of the same stuff and so much different stuff. It was too much for anyone, and people tended to focus on a few things that they really liked. She found a few things she liked, too. They had fairy tales on Earth, but she still liked the ones on Remnant better. She found herself drawn to superheroes, and joked that on Remnant, they would just be normal heroes.

She learned how to use the Internet. It was a global network with lots of sites to visit, full of information and entertainment and you could even buy stuff on it. They didn't have anything like that on Remnant! There was tons of information there and you could access it from anywhere. And then she found some really nasty stuff and she didn't want to go on the internet anymore and she learned how to _safely_ use the internet.

She learned why there was no school. Apparently there was something called a union, which workers formed to get better pay and working conditions. The teachers were complaining that they weren't getting paid enough and there weren't enough resources in the classroom. The government was saying they couldn't spend more money without raising taxes and cutting other services. She thought that was stupid and they should just pay the teachers already, but maybe that's just because she didn't want to deal with angry teachers.

Life on Earth sounded both fun and boring. It sounded both easy and hard. She was both excited and apprehensive. All in all, it was both completely the same and totally different from Remnant.

Ruby could live here. She had to. But she swore a silent oath to herself. She would keep looking for her friends, and she would keep looking for a way home.

* * *

This story is far from over. This is the conclusion of the first act, but there's more to come. Way more to come. I'm also considering doing some omakes. Maybe Ruby Discovers Fanfiction or something like that.

Ruby's conclusions may not be entirely correct. This is deliberate. Also, Ruby's hard to write, so there's that.

By the way, if you haven't already, check the cover image again.

* * *

**Act 2 Teaser**

The girl was awakened by a strange voice.

"Chy ye khto tut?" the voice asked. It repeated, "Chy ye khto tut?"

She didn't understand, but the sound was enough to jolt her awake. She blinked and stood up, gathering her surroundings. Then she blinked again. This looked like a... destroyed city. There was dust in the air and on her jacket and skirt, which she patted off.

Absentmindedly, her hand brushed against her side. Good. It was still there. That reassured her somewhat.

"Z vamy vse harazd?" the voice asked in what the girl assumed was the same gibberish language. She turned and saw the owner of the voice. It was a man in green and brown military fatigues. He was carrying some kind of rifle- some kind of _crude_ rifle.

"What?" the girl replied, raising an eyebrow. She had never heard anyone speak that language before.

"Yak vas zvaty?" the man asked, concerned.

"What are you saying?"

With a heavy accent, the man struggled, "What is name?"

The girl replied, "Weiss."


	11. We Have A Problem

We're now onto Act 2: Ice Princess. I think everyone has already figured out where this act is going, but if you haven't: Donetsk.

Donetsk is misspelled in the video title. I did catch the mistake, but decided to keep it and lampshade it instead.

Half this chapter is a history lesson. It's not a very good one, and this is deliberate. Don't rely on it for writing an essay or anything like that.

Review replies are now at the bottom.

* * *

_**11: We Have A Problem**_

**Cliff**

_Laughable Donetstk Propaganda Video Featuring Princess Anastasia_

Now, usually I don't read articles with clickbait titles like that. Especially misspelled clickbait titles. I was looking for actual news on the Ukrainian conflict, whether the ceasefire was holding or not. But Anastasia captured a lot of hearts, and I guess one of them was mine, because at the mention of her name I was strangely curious.

There wasn't actually an article, just the video in question. It was only three minutes long, so what the hell. Database homework could wait. I started the video and fullscreen'd it.

At first, I thought the video was a ripoff that wasn't going to show the princess at all. It showed two men in military fatigues, presumably pro-Russian rebels, one masked and one not. They were standing in front of mostly-intact building, and both were carrying Kalashnikov rifles. No Anastasia in sight. I guess they'd bring her out later, or maybe it was just some shitty metaphor.

Maybe one of the rifles was named Princess Anastasia.

They spouted off for about a minute about the militia and how they were fighting and why they were fighting or something like that. I wasn't actually sure, because their English wasn't very good and I couldn't understand what they were saying.

"Now we show special person who support us," the non-masked rebel said, catching my attention. Was the princess going to show up finally?

A girl, maybe about my age or a little younger, stepped into the frame. She was scowling hard, and clearly was not happy to be there. Despite that, her gait was firm and dignified and actually princess-y.

"She is Princess of Tsar," the non-masked rebel explained excitedly. More like some poor girl you found and gave a few rubles to pretend to be your princess. And they didn't even get the outfit right. But the demeanour wasn't bad.

Maybe she could have a future in acting.

"Anastasia." Sure, guys. Last time I checked, Princess Anastasia didn't have platinum blonde hair. To be fair, that might have something to do with all the photos being in black and white. Still, I was pretty sure she had darker hair.

In addition to, you know, being dead for a _hundred fucking years_.

"I have no idea what these dunces are talking about." I blinked, and not just because "Anastasia" spoke clear, English with no discernible accent. The girl sounded _familiar_. Before she could say anything else, they moved the camera and presumably pushed her away outside the frame.

With the girl in the back of my mind, I watched the rest of the video. It was the usual propaganda bullshit, talking about the injustice of the Kyiv regime, the betrayal against ethnic Russians, the Russocentric future, the lies of the west, all in broken, heavily accented English. I might have laughed if I wasn't still thinking about the briefly shown girl.

I seeked back and rewatched the segment that had caught my eye. "I have no idea what these dunces are talking about."

I paused the video and stared at the still image. It was a really crappy video, taken with a phone and probably by someone who had no idea what they were doing. Compression artifacts and a general lack of detail made it difficult to make out much. Platinum blonde hair in a lopsided ponytail- I think, the white balance was awful. Off-white jacket with red inside, matching skirt. I couldn't see what she had on her feet, but it wasn't tall boots.

Fix the white balance and take away the dirt and...

"No fucking way."

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

"Hey, Ruby," Cliff greeted, less awkwardly now that we've been talking for a while. He dropped a package of cookies in front of me, which I immediately tore open.

"Where is it today?" I asked. Cliff knew a lot about Earth and was giving me what was basically history lessons on all the countries. The history and geography and all the countries and stuff was the hardest to learn because everything else was similar on Vale but this had a lot of names and places and stuff I'd never heard before.

"Ukraine," he said simply, sitting down and stealing one of my cookies. That was the price I paid for these lessons. But I guess he brought the cookies anyway so maybe having to sit through history was the price to pay for cookies. But it was kind of interesting to learn about so I guess it was okay.

"I thought you were going to talk about Vietnam today?" I asked.

He nodded. "I was."

"So... why Ukraine?"

"I'll tell you after everyone gets here," Cliff said dismissively.

"Does it have something to do with the news?" Apparently people were fighting in Ukraine because of Russia or something like that. It was a civil war, which he had explained earlier was a war inside a country where people fought each other. I thought the name was silly because war isn't civil, especially on Earth.

"Something like that," he replied before starting. "What do you remember about the Soviet Union?"

"It was like this big communist empire that was really powerful and then it collapsed because it was actually a mess inside!" I explained, gesturing with my hands.

"Pretty much, yeah," he nodded. "And what were the countries in the Soviet Union?"

I struggled with that, because I'm not very good at remembering lots of little details and stuff. "Um, Russia, Belarussia, Ukraine, Litviuania, and something-stan. And a couple more I think."

Cliff nodded again. "There's a few more, yeah, but the only ones we really need to know about for this are Russia and the Ukraine."

"Okay, we got to the part about where the Soviet Union collapsed and broke up, but I didn't get a chance to talk about what happened after. You know Russia is still a pretty powerful country, and it's not that bad, even though their political system is kind of screwed up, but that's today. The nineties- that is, the 1990s- were a very rough time for the former Soviet Union- and the Warsaw Pact, but that's more of an aside."

"Why?" I asked. "Shouldn't they have been better off with the Soviet Union gone?"

"In the long run, yes, but in the short term it was like having the government decapitated. Even though it was a dysfunctional system, the Soviet economy was still an economy. So now all the ties are severed, nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing, resources aren't available where they're needed, currency's in the toilet, basically, without the central control it's a mess. That's ignoring the fact that some of these places started having revolutions and violent conflicts.

"Over time, it did sort itself out. There was some fighting, some economic strife, but eventually most of these countries got out of their deep holes. Mostly by getting closer to the West, economically and even militarily. Most of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic states join the European Union and NATO in the next two decades. Problem is, Russia- and Putin- you remember Putin, right?"

I nodded.

"Right, well, Russia didn't like that. They had some idea about wanting to stay a world power. They feel like they're being pressed by the West. Well, probably. This really starts to be big after the Iraq War in 2003 or thereabouts. Russia's pretty much got Belarus in its pocket, they install a pro-Russian government in the Ukraine, nope the South Ossetian independence."

"So they're trying to be the Soviet Union again?" I asked.

"Sort of, but the problem is the world's not the same. The West has won, and for most of these countries it's the way forward. If you want my personal opinion, Russia should have embodied the 'if you can't beat them, join them' principle, but there are cultural differences and such so basically it's not happening.

"Bringing the focus back to Ukraine, it's not in a good position after the fall of the Soviet Union. Their economy took a hit and never really recovered. They didn't want to get close to Russia, but they weren't really close to the West either. There's some controversy about Russia rigging the elections, economic shit, I don't know the details and I was too lazy to research them before I got here."

I suppressed a laugh at Cliff's omission. He noticed.

"Yeah, I know, I know. All this came to a head in late 2013 and early 2014. So that was just a few months ago. In October or November 2013- I can't remember which- there's this European trade deal which the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich- installed by the Russians, we think- declines in favour of- surprise surprise- closer ties to Russia.

"Right away people start protesting. We call this Euromaidan, or Eurosquare, after the central square in Kyiv where most of the protesting is happening. The government- Yanukovich's government- cracks down, and the place starts to look like a warzone, with barricades and shooting and molotovs in the street. Eventually, not until February of this year though, they finally kick Yanukovich out."

"Okay, so it's over?"

"No. This effectively splits the country apart. Not just the country, but it kind of opens up the East-West divide again. Well, sort of, I mean, most of what was the East is now the West, but basically this has been the most tense we've been since the end of the Cold War. The West is saying Yanukovich was abusing his power, he was removed legitimately, Russia is putting pressure on the Ukraine and the future is with the West. Russia is saying Yanukovich was legitimate, he was removed illegally, the West is putting pressure on the Ukraine and the future is with Russia. With me so far?"

"Sort of." That was a lot to take in. Finally, I added. "What do you think?"

Cliff took a deep breath. "Given Russia's track record in recent years, I think Ukraine is better off siding with the West. But both sides are pushing their own interests and it's not a black and white issue.

"Anyway, after getting rid of Yanukovich, the new disorganized and ineffective government has a new problem to deal with. Ukraine is divided. Most of the country, West and Central Ukraine, is with the new government, more or less Western-aligned. There's some pro-Russian protestors. But there's two real problem areas. Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. These are places that are mostly ethnically Russian, speak Russian, and in the case of Crimea it was part of Russia until the forties, maybe the fifties.

"There's fighting in both places, pro-Russian rebels taking out the local government. Crimea is really bad, because the Russian have a presence there and unofficially, their troops start fighting too. It's a little peninsula with access to the Black Sea, so it's maybe strategic. Anyway, pretty soon the Russians have the place, they run a referendum of dubious legitimacy, and Crimea is now part of Russia in a shocking display of violating Ukraine's sovereignty. That was April."

"Why didn't that start a war?" I asked.

"Officially, they're merely protecting themselves, the more aggressive actions taken by local protestors. Officially. Nobody was going to come to blows with Russia over that."

I asked him to explain.

He checked his watch, blinked, and sped up. "A war is too costly and nobody's going to go up against Russia, which is still pretty powerful, over Ukraine. The main way of dealing with a country that's out of line is economic sanctions- blocking trade and stuff, but that hurts the guys doing the sanctioning too. Europe needs Russia's natural gas, so they can't be too aggressive. So Russia gets Crimea with lots of protesting. Maybe it was a power grab, maybe they were trying to do the right thing but they didn't do it right. That's Crimea, got it?"

I nodded.

"Spring, then summer. Fighting continuing in Donetsk- that's a city in Eastern Ukraine- with the pro-Russian rebels wanting to separate. The Ukrainians have gotten their shit together by the summer, and they're pushing the rebels back. But I don't think the Russians They send some aid, some more clandestine than the rest, and the rest of the world accuses them of basically invading Ukraine, maybe they're even sending troops in. It's not really provable so far. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, they sign a ceasefire, maybe the Russians are pulling out if they were there there, most of the fighting stops, but the rebels still want autonomy."

He paused. "And now it's today. That's a pretty shitty summary, but hopefully you got something out of it."

Wow. That was pretty complicated, and I think I only got like half of it. I asked, "So are you going to tell me why I needed to learn all that today?"

He checked his watch again. "Wait five minutes."

"Fine," I replied, eating the last cookie.

Pretty soon, Sam and Isaac show up, and we all sit down around Ben's kitchen table, which is too small for all of us. But there's no room in his kitchen for a bigger one.

"Okay, you'll never guess what I found on the internet today," Cliff said, finding a website on his laptop. It was titled _Laughable Donetstk Propaganda Video Featuring Princess Anastasia_ and there was a big video on the page.

"It's a shitty propaganda video," Ben muttered. I guess he thought I couldn't hear him.

"I didn't know you liked Disney Princesses," Sam teased.

"First, Anastasia isn't a Disney Princess. Second, that's not why I'm showing you this."

"So you do like Disney Princesses?"

"Just shut up and watch," Cliff snapped, starting the video.

The video had two guys, one covering his face, both with military clothes and carrying guns. They were standing in front of a damaged building. They talked about rebellion and why they were fighting and they weren't very good at talking.

"Now we show special person who support us," the rebel with no mask said, and a girl stepped into the frame.

"That's Weiss!" I shouted right away.

"She is Princess of Tsar." I remembered what Blake said. _Heiress, actually._

"Anastasia." Anastasi-who?

"I have no idea what these dunces are talking about," Weiss said in that I-can't-believe-I-have-to-deal-with-you-idiots tone that I used to hear a lot.

I pointed at her weapon on the screen. "Look! Myrtenaster!"

Then Weiss was pushed out of the video and the two rebels kept talking about boring stuff. Cliff paused the video.

Sam looked at Cliff, who shrugged. "I thought it was a bit of rubble."

"Ruby, are you sure that's Weiss?" Sam asked me firmly.

"Totally super sure!" I replied, nodding eagerly. "And if she's here that means maybe Blake and Yang are here and maybe she came looking for me and maybe there's a way back and we need to find her and talk right away!"

They looked at each other and there was an awkward silence. Finally, Sam broke the silence.

"You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me."

* * *

Yes, I know I should have replied to reviews for Chapter 10, but I was in a rush to push the chapter out. I may do it every chapter from this point forward, we'll see. These responses are in order from oldest to newest, so if you've left two reviews, I've responded to the first one first.

Guest 2.0: The actual lines from the song are "Welcome to a world of new solutions/Welcome to a world of bloody evolution." I deliberately changed it to "Welcome to a world of disillusion/Welcome to a world of bloody revolutions."

Slen D. Man: This isn't Weiss Reacts. At least, not yet.

Jlargent: Right idea, wrong cities. One has been revealed, and if you look closely you can probably see the other two as well.

funvince: Not necessarily. What we know as Volume 2 is no longer valid in Ruby's home reality. Even if she did manage to return before it began, the ripple effects of her spending time on earth would change it and it would no longer match what we know as Volume 2. Volume 2 in our reality (and the one in the fic) is created as planned, but no longer lines up with what's happening in Ruby's home reality.

n2000nick: You might be on to something.

The10thDoctor1964: Of course. Why else would there be extra space on the book cover?

funvince: It's the initial transition that's going to suck for them.

InterestingAuthor345: Don't worry, she's actually just in the part of Ukraine where all the fighting is.

Firem78910: Again, pretty close. Ukraine, although that part seems to be leaning toward Russia.

mikel2814: Eastern Ukraine, so pretty much.

chaosrin: Somewhat, but there's still the big shock like Ruby had, except worse. Weiss is a lot better at hiding her feelings and putting out a certain facade than Ruby is, though.

rtost: It might be an omake or a filler scene somewhere, but soaking up RWBY fan works will not be the focus of this fic.


	12. Not A Princess

I think you'll either love this chapter or hate this chapter.

Weiss is only marginally easier to write than Ruby. I wrote her rather harsh and arrogant, and to be honest I'm not really happy with my characterization of Weiss. I feel that I didn't get her personality across well. What do you think?

I'm considering putting up a TVTropes page, but it would be useless without people to edit it. Are there any tropers reading this?

* * *

_**2: Not A Princess**_

_**Weiss Schnee**_

This was all Ruby's fault.

_Be nice to them, Weiss_, I could almost hear her say. _Don't just cut them up. Violence is not the answer. __Especially if they're nice to you._

After I ran into that man, he got very excited for some reason. I asked and he thought I was some kind of princess. I explained that it was actually _heiress_, and he apologized that he didn't know the word. He said he could give me food and shelter but that he wanted me to help them with something first. I was disoriented, I was confused, and I made the mistake of accepting help.

And that's how I ended up being in some kind of ridiculous video. These imbeciles were some kind of rebels, only I had no idea what they were rebelling against. Something something West and East. They must be from some strange place in the corner of the world to have Valic that bad. I had met many people from all the kingdoms, and I had never heard it butchered like that.

I still had no idea where I was. I tried asking, but I don't think they understood, because the only answers I got were _Donetsk_, _Donbass_, _Novorossiya_, and a more reluctant _Ukraine_. I considered myself reasonably learned in the regions of the world, and I had never heard of any of those. I had tried looking for flags or signs, but I didn't see any I recognized. I couldn't even read most of the signs- they were in some alphabet I'd never seen before.

I had no idea who these people were, either. Again, they spoke a language I couldn't understand or recognize. The three who were making the video looked military, but they could be some kind of rebels or criminals. They said they were part of some kind of _Donbass People's Militia_, which could be an actual military or a paramilitary group. I had never heard of it before, in any case.

I could get answers if I wanted to, and I should have. But because of Ruby and her crazy attitude, which had somehow rubbed off on me, I was being passive and not assertive. I just followed those imbeciles into this bombed-out ruin of a building. Apparently they had done something wrong that their superiors didn't like.

Well, that was a surprise.

No matter how disoriented I was, no matter how confused I was, no matter how much Ruby had influenced me, I was still Weiss Schnee. Back straight, chin up, perfect steps. I ignored the lecherous- and confused- gazes. _I am above these peasants._

Confidence. Show it, even if you don't have it. One of the men waved me into a small but relatively clean room. I strode in, and he shut the door behind me.

The room was bare except for a desk- no, it was actually a folding table. It was covered in papers and some kind of computer device as if it was a desk. Standing to one side was a man, perhaps in his thirties, loosely clutching a rifle. Sitting behind the desk was an older man who looked like he needed a shave. Both were wearing military clothing.

"I am sorry for my, how you say, follower," the man behind the desk began.

"You better be," I snapped. "Do you have any idea what they made me do?"

"The video, you mean?"

"What did you think I meant?"

"Well, you are beautiful girl, and they are young men..." He shrugged.

Oh, that. Of course. Pig. "I can handle myself, thank you. If they tried anything, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I suppose not. Unfortunately, video cannot be taken down once is on Internet- you understand, of course. But we tell them, is not our video, is fake. So some are excite and see, but most do not see now. Because no point."

"Good," I snapped. This man had better Valic, but it was still awful. Where did he learn to talk? What he said didn't make any sense, but I suppose he had taken care of the matter to the best of his ability.

I was being awfully generous. Ruby would be proud. Wherever she was.

The man nodded. "Once again, I am sorry. Those man, are good spirit, fighting spirit, very patriotic, but not so smart. How American say? Heart in right place, but mind not so much."

He paused. "So, what is name?"

"Weiss," I replied curtly. I decided to hold off on dropping the Schnee name for now. It could get me out of trouble, or into more trouble. I had to know which as soon as possible.

"Ah!" he said, and stuttered, "Sind sie Deutsch?"

I don't think that was Valic. "I have no idea what you just said."

A slightly embarassed look crossed his face. "I am sorry, my German is bad. My English is bad also, but is better, yes?"

"I suppose," I allowed, Ruby's influence still negatively affecting me.

"I am Alexey," he introduced himself, standing up and extending his hand.

I reluctantly took it. His grip was surprisingly weak considering his size.

Alexey sat down and explained, "I am leader of local, uh, militia here. We fight for Novorossiya, wish to separate from Ukraine. Want to be with Russia- well, I am sure you hear plenty on news. You are from West, yes?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Well, I just say, is not simple, is not uh, black and white as Western media portray. I am sure they say Ukraine good, Russia bad, but is lies. We are more Russia than Ukraine, not want to be West. Understand?"

"No."

Before he could continue, the other man interrupted, "Weiss. Is first name or family name?"

His accent was even worse. I think that was curiosity, but it was hard to tell.

"That's _my_ name," I replied, emphasizing the _my_ part. I didn't know of any families named Weiss, but maybe there was some unimportant one out in the middle of nowhere.

"And family?"

"Why should I tell you?"

He shrugged. "Am curious. Is too secret, you are important family?"

"Fine. It's Schnee." As soon as I finished, the man burst out laughing. I glared at him.

He said something to Alexey in the strange language, and he nodded before glaring at me. "Dmitri say you are cartoon character of Japan."

I matched his glare. "I'm nobody's cartoon character."

The other man- Dmitri- said something again in that horrible language, and then handed Alexey what looked like a scroll. He showed some pictures I couldn't make out from my angle, describing them in that weird language.

Alexey turned back to me and asked with an edge to his voice, "So, what is real name? I say you not sound German, but I am not good with accent also."

"I am Weiss Schnee," I replied firmly. "I'm not an imitator, I'm the real heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Happy?"

Quietly, I moved my hand closer to Myrtenaster. I had a bad feeling about these men, but at the same time I was confused. People have gone after me trying to hurt the Schnee Dust Company. But these men didn't seem to care.

"Impossible!" Dmitri insisted, to my surprise.

I'd never encountered a situation where people had insisted I wasn't Weiss Schnee before. I'd had to convince people I _wasn't_ in the past (to varying degrees of success), but I'd never had to convince them I _was_.

Maybe I should have just said no, I wasn't, I was just some random person off the street.

"You are this Weiss Schnee?" he asked, showing me the scroll.

There was picture of me on the screen. It looked like someone's drawing, or maybe a computer model, of, well, me. "It's not the best art I've seen, but that's me."

"You are not real," Dmitri insisted. "Weiss Schnee is cartoon from Japan. I know, my, uh, my-"

"Daughter," Alexey suggested.

"Yes, daughter love show." He tapped the scroll. "This is show!"

The two men exchanged rapid fire... whatever that language was.

Finally, Alexey sighed. "I do not know if you are not right in mind, if you are joke, or something else. In all, does not matter. I apologize for actions of men, and I apologize that I must do this. I cannot do anything for you. I feel bad about, but I must let you onto street, you fend for self, survive."

What? "Okay?"

Alexey extended his hand again. "Such is war. You head back to-"

He was cut off by an armed man bursting into the room, shouting something in their language. Alexey's face turned from neutral to worried to intense. He stood up and headed toward the door.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Is attack. Supposed to be ceasefire, but some volunteer zealous and keep fight. Dmitri take you to shelter." He motioned toward the other man.

"Come. Quickly." Dmitri had his weapon out and he looked serious, but he moved like an amateur. Keeping one hand on Myrtenaster, I followed him through the hallway and out of the building.

I walked into a warzone. There was shouting all around, men- soldiers, I guess- running toward sandbags, walls, and bits of rubble. Staccato gunfire filled the air, though it sounded a little bit odd, not like any of the weapons I had used. I saw vehicles approaching, with men beside them shooting at us- well, the people I was with, anyway. There was a loud bang, and part of the building exploded outward. Someone had a _big_ gun.

We ran toward a stone wall. As soon as we were close, Dmitri grabbed me roughly and pulled me down, and started crawling along the stone wall. I'm not sure why- we would be much better off just getting off the battlefield as quickly as possible.

I had no idea who was fighting who. For all I knew, Dmitri could be one of the bad guys. They sounded like they were trying to do something good, but I knew all too well where that could lead. I couldn't get involved here. I couldn't fight on anyone's side. That was something Ruby and I could agree on.

Still, I drew Myrtenaster, gripping it properly with my left hand. Dmitri looked at me, confused. "Sword will do you-"

Suddenly, the wall beside us exploded, hammering my Aura and throwing me violently into the street. I admit, that hurt. I forced the pain and disorientation away and stood up.

I looked over to where Dmitri should have been and suppressed the urge to vomit. All that was left was a bloody mess. Why didn't that dunce use his Aura? He did have it unlocked, right? What kind of fighter didn't? I forced the niggled veins of pity away. It was not my concern.

I had to get away from the battle. There were more vehicles and men approaching down the street from the same direction as the others, but the other way looked clear apart from the rubble and wreckage. I clipped Myrtenaster back onto my hip and sprinted down that direction.

Three armed men, wearing different uniforms than the ones I had seen before burst out onto the street, rifles at the ready. One of them, probably their leader, shouted, "Stij!"

I ignored him and kept going. The leader pointed his weapon at me and repeated, "Stij! Stop!"

"No." I refused, continuing to walk toward them. I suppose I was tired of dealing with uncooperative idiots.

"You stupid girl!" The man waved his gun again. "We have gun!"

I tried to keep going, past them to... somewhere. I didn't know where to go, but I was _not_ going to repeat my previous mistake. A stranger in a strange land does not make friends with the locals. Suddenly, there was a burst of gunfire, and bits of the street exploded in front of me.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I asked irritably, trying to ignore the fact that he just _shot at me_. It was a warning shot, but still.

The leader said something angrily to one of the other men in that strange language, then said to me, "You are girl in propaganda video, yes? You must come."

"Why?" I asked, stepping forward.

Very quickly, three things happened. One of the men raised his gun and shot right at me. Nerves, I suppose. He missed, but before he could try again- if that was what he was trying to do- I raised Myrtenaster and drove the it into him.

I didn't let the fact that Myrtenaster was covered in blood when I pulled it out of his chest bother me, even though it _did_ bother me.

The other two tried backing away, but I was faster. One of the men managed to get off a burst in my general direction before I cut his chest open. He desperately grabbed for his insides as they spilled out. That was new, that was disgusting, that was sickening, and I didn't have time to think about it.

These men _couldn't_ be soldiers. Their guns were useless, they didn't have unlocked Aura, and they were incompetent. The last man, the leader, dropped his gun and raised his hands.

I pointed Myrtenaster at him, the tip almost, but not quite, touching his throat. "Explain yourself."

"I am Ukraine soldier!" he explained desperately. I noticed now that his accent was different than the other men I had met, though only slightly. "Do not know who you are, just have order, yes, order to get! Please, can talk!"

I sighed. I was in the middle of a war, in a place I had never heard of, with a man I knew nothing about at the end of my rapier. I couldn't place it, but everything seemed _different_. And when I tried to think of how I got here, I couldn't even remember that. Could this get any worse?

My stomach rumbled. Oh, right, I guess it could.

This was all Ruby's fault.


	13. A Terrible Plan

Back to Ruby, Sam, and company. This alternating pattern will stick around for a few chapters at the minimum.

Are the OCs coming across as idiots? I'm trying to write them realistically- they fight, they don't know everything, they make mistakes, they're in over their heads. But I'm worried that I'm making them unsympathetic characters in the process.

This chapter may come across as a bit rushed and unpolished. Sorry about that, I'm busy with other stuff and I wanted to get this chapter out as quickly as possible. I'm hoping to get all four girls together before Halloween.

That's also why there aren't any review responses this chapter. I'll catch up on them next chapter, I promise!

* * *

_**3: A Terrible Plan**_

**Sam**

"You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me," I swore. "What are we gonna do?"

"What _can_ we do?" Isaac asked rhetorically- and quietly.

"Well, we know where Weiss is!" Ruby said enthusiastically, her mood unlike everyone else in the room. "We just have to go find her and bring her back!"

Jen shook her head. "It's not that simple, Ruby."

"Why not?"

"Well, the Ukraine is another country, and it's far away," Isaac explained. "There's flights and borders and stuff. You can't just go there, you have to have passports and visas and it could be dangerous."

Seeing Ruby's confused look, Jen explained, "It would be like trying to get her out of Mistral."

"Yeah, if Mistral had a little uprising supported by Vacuo," Cliff remarked dryly.

"It's a big place, it'll be hard to find her," Ben added. "One in a million, literally."

"But she's here! We have to go get her! It can't be that hard!" Ruby said, waving her arm. "We're so close!"

I nodded. "I think it might be possible, but we need to plan and prepare-"

"No," Cliff snapped. "We are not trying any elaborate goddamn plan that's not gonna work and gonna get us all killed."

"So what the hell are we gonna do?" I asked. "We can't just leave her in goddamn Donetsk!"

Cliff folded his arms. "Simple. We walk into the Ukrainian consulate, we explain the situation, and we take our chances that they don't think we're insane."

"That's not gonna work, Cliff!" I shouted. "They probably won't believe us, and if they do, then what? If they can do anything- if- then the shit's really gonna hit the fan! Government agents, detention, I don't even know but it's not gonna be pretty."

"And do you think we can pull off a rescue mission?" Cliff roared back. "Even if we can get into the country, even if we can get to Donetsk, even if we can find Weiss, even if we don't get killed in the process, how the hell are we supposed to get Weiss back here? Think this through, god damn it!"

"We can't leave her there," I insisted.

"Look, I'm not going to go as far as to say we should," Cliff replied intensely. "But we cannot get her out. Not without help."

I sighed. "Fine. We'll try your way first."

* * *

"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked when we walked in. She had an accent, but her English was very good overall.

I smiled as I walked up to the desk, Isaac about a step or two behind me. "Hi, I know this may sound odd, but we have a friend in the Ukraine who we think is in danger and we need to get her out."

"This is not a matter we generally deal with," she replied politely, but firmly.

"Yeah, but we don't know where else to go," I pleaded. "We're really worried about her."

"I must take this to the head of the post and perhaps higher," she said after a moment. "Can you describe your friend? Give a name and description, please."

"Okay, uh, her name is Weiss Schnee," I explained. "She's about five feet tall, icy blue eyes, snow white hair, usually in an off-centre ponytail. She's seventeen, skinny, not, uh, not well endowed. The last thing we know she was wearing is was a blue-white bolero jacket, matching skirt, and ankle-length wedge boots."

"She also carries a sword with a revolver cylinder in it," Isaac added not-so-helpfully. "Usually."

I got a bit worried when she started typing. I got really worried when her voice turned from carefully neutral to discernibly angry and she snapped at us, "Is this a joke? She is anime character!"

"It's not!" I insisted. "Look, about two weeks ago we found Ruby Rose in Vancouver. We tried to find the rest of her team, but we couldn't find them. Then, yesterday, Cliff- our friend- saw a video that showed Weiss Schnee in Donetsk. We're pretty sure it's real and we need to get the team back together and find a way to get them home."

"I don't blame you for having a hard time believing this," Isaac offered. "I mean, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see Ruby in the flesh. We can bring her here if it helps."

In retrospect, actually explaining what happened probably wasn't the best idea. It just made the lady even more angry.

"I don't know if you think this is funny, if is dare, or if you get money, but consulate is serious business," the receptionist scolded harshly, now quite angry. "In times like this, it is not only offensive, but it waste our time and we can't help people who are actually in need! Now get out before I report you for the violations!"

"What violations?" Isaac began asking before I literally dragged him out of the consulate lobby, myself swearing under my breath.

Isaac and I walked back into Ben's apartment, generally feeling like shit. Ruby was there, waiting eagerly for us, and that made my feel even worse.

* * *

As soon as I entered, Ben immediately asked, "Did it-"

I cut him off. "Nope."

"How badly did it-"

"Really fucking horrible. There's no way they're going to help us."

"But we have to help Weiss!" Ruby protested.

"I know, Ruby, I know," I reassured the girl, then turned to the rest of the group. "So, what's our plan?"

"No goddamn plan," Cliff objected. "We're not going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything."

"You're just gonna stand by and do nothing?" Ruby asked angrily.

He shook his head. "No. I'm gonna stand by and live my life."

I snapped at him, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Look, I know you may think I'm a horrible human being for saying this, but I have my own ass to look out for. Even if I don't get killed horribly in the Ukraine, I'm gonna miss at least a week of school-"

I knew Cliff had a point, but his attitude was really pissing me off. "Oh, boo frickin' hoo, you're gonna a miss a whole goddamn week of school!"

"Yeah. That's enough for me to stand a serious chance of failing. BCIT isn't your stodgy university. And if I fail, my whole goddamn life goes down the toilet. My parents are gonna ask why I failed, and what am I supposed to tell them? Oh, that's right, I was in Donetsk rescuing a fictional character. Goodbye education, goodbye career, goodbye parents that don't think I'm a colossal failure."

"Damn it, Cliff, that's not a guarantee. You can find some excuse, you can make up the work. It's not gonna be that bad."

"It's gonna be bad," he disagreed. "Sam, you know I quit engineering because it was too much work. How the hell am I supposed to handle going into a warzone and coming back to a metric shitload of homework and twice that in questions?"

I snapped at him, "So that's more important to you? You care more about having an easy life than saving a human life."

He snapped back, "That's stretching it and you know it. I'm pragmatic. At this point, Weiss is an abstraction. Yes, logically, I know she's a human being, Ruby's friend and teammate, a girl that's lost and alone. But emotionally? Yeah, I feel a little sympathy, I'll admit that, but at the end of the day it's not my concern."

"You heartless mother-"

"Let me finish, damn it. You see those ads about those African kids who are dying? Does it tug at my heartstrings? Yeah, I don't want to admit it, but it does. It's not real enough for me, and I have other concerns at the front of my mind that take priority."

"But this is Weiss!" Ruby protested.

Cliff totally ignored her and kept glaring at me. "You think this is easy for me? You think I want to live knowing I let down Weiss goddamn Schnee? I don't want to. But I'm smart enough to understand what I can and cannot do and I will push down the negative emotions and force myself to do what I need to do-"

"Cliff, you son of a-"

Jen stepped between us. "Look, you're both right, and you're both wrong. If we do this, it's going to require sacrifices by all of us. We're risking a lot, I know, and that's never easy. But we can do it."

"Rise to the challenge, guys," Isaac interjected quietly.

Jen took a deep breath. "I suggest we figure out how we're going to do this, _hypothetically_, and then we can decide if we're actually going to go through with it or not."

She turned to Cliff, who blanched at her glare. "Do you think you can do that?"

He sighed. "Yeah. I can do that."

I began to apologize. "Look, man, I know I've been a dick-"

"And I'm a heartless pragmatist. I will apologize for my outburst, but my opinion still stands." Cliff half-apologized.

"So, are we doing this?" Ruby asked.

"Maybe," I replied. "We need to figure out how we're going to do it first."

"Don't we just go there, find Weiss, and bring her back?"

"We have a saying on Earth," I replied. "The devil's in the details."

"The devil?"

"Basically, it means the details are the potentially problematic parts," Isaac explained.

"Let's divide this into parts," Ben suggested.

I nodded. "Sure. Part one, get to Donetsk."

"Do we fly in?" Isaac asked.

"No, we're gonna spend two months on a ship," Ben snapped sarcastically.

"Actually, that's potentially a problem," Cliff said. "I don't think we can fly into the Ukraine. It's a no-fly zone because of what happened with that Malaysia Airlines flight. That means we're going to have to fly into, say, Poland and cross the border by land."

"And getting to Donetsk?"

Cliff shrugged. "We drive and hope nobody stops us. We may have to bribe some people along the way. And hope nobody shoots us."

I nodded. "Okay, piece of cake. Part two, we need to find Weiss in Donetsk."

"And convince her to come with us," Cliff added.

I nodded again. "And convince her to come with us."

Ruby offered, "I can do that."

Cliff shook his head. "No. In fact, we can't bring Ruby at all."

"Why not?" Ruby asked.

"We can't take Ruby with us?" I asked.

"Unaccompanied minor, although that's a minor problem compared to the fact that she doesn't exist here and has no identification documents," Cliff explained.

"Oh," Ruby muttered, disappointed.

"Isn't that a problem for Weiss, too?" Isaac asked.

"Shit, yeah, it is," I replied. "But that's part of part three. Get Weiss out of Donetsk."

"We're not done part two," Ben said.

"Yeah. How do we find Weiss?"

Isaac shrugged. "Well, we're just going to have to ask around. She is pretty distinctive."

"That might be all we can do," Jen agreed.

"And convincing her?"

Cliff pondered it for a moment. "I think a recorded message from Ruby is the best we can do. I'd say we could do a phone call, but there's no guarantee we'll be able to get cell service."

"This is a pretty shaky plan," Ben said.

"Yeah, I know," I agreed. "Okay, part three. Get Weiss out of Donetsk."

"Back the way we came in?" Ben suggested.

Isaac shook his head. "Have to get her through two borders."

"That's pretty much inevitable," Cliff pointed out. "We'll need to get her a forged passport, and we might have to do that in, say, Kyiv. I don't know if we have a picture that will work for it here."

He paused. "I think it's worth noting that what we're planning to do is incredibly illegal, stands a decent chance of getting us all arrested, and could result in everything going to hell."

"That's the risk," Jen said.

"Where do we get a forged passport?" I asked.

"Maybe somewhere where people get shot," Cliff suggested.

Ben answered, "The darknet, obviously."

I summarized, "So, we fly into Poland, cross the border, make our way to Donetsk, find Weiss, get her to come with us, go back to Poland, and fly back home."

"That's right. Easy as pie."

"Okay, so we have a plan," I finished. "It's a shitty plan, and it's incomplete as hell, but we have something to work with."

"You're all forgetting one thing," Ben pointed out.

Cliff caught on immediately. "It's money, isn't it? Yeah, this is gonna be expensive."

"It's always about the money," Ruby sighed.

"How much money are we talking?" I asked. If it wasn't too much, maybe we could all pitch in and we'd have enough to pull this off.

"Probably ten grand, minimum," Cliff replied immediately, dashing my hopes. "Maybe more. I don't know what a fake passport costs."

I asked, "Where the hell are we gonna get that?"

"Rooster Teeth," Isaac suggested.

"Do you think that will actually work?"

"Do you have any other ideas?"

"No," I admitted. "Okay, today's Saturday. I want you guys to look for how to get a fake passport, how to get into Ukraine, flights and all that, and how to get to Donetsk. Isaac, you can get us money. We'll meet again for dinner on Monday and we can figure out the final details."

"This is gonna be awesome!" Ruby shouted.

Cliff was much more sanguine. "Man, I can't believe we're actually thinking about doing this."


	14. Not A Peasant

Weiss is hard to write. Sorry about the delays and quality. College is kicking my ass.

EDIT: Patched some issues with this chapter.

Review replies are at the bottom.

* * *

_**14: Not a Peasant**_

"It wasn't stolen," I muttered to myself.

I had taken it from what looked like a food bank or handout place. After running into that soldier, I had decided that I needed food more than I needed answers. I disarmed him and ran. It probably wasn't the best idea, but I couldn't think at the time. I saw several people gravitating toward one spot, so I followed them. They were handing out food, but I didn't want to wait.

I tore open the green plastic package. Inside were several packages made of foil or plastic. Most of them were opaque and labelled with a mix of letters I recognized and letters I didn't. A completely different language.

I groaned in frustration. I recognized the crackers, at least, so I pulled those out and tore one open. I nearly spat it out. The cracker was dry and tasted terrible. But it was food, and I needed food. I tore open one of the smaller foil packets and took an experimental taste.

I groaned in frustration. I recognized the crackers, at least, so I pulled those out and tore one open. vI nearly spat it out. The cracker was dry and tasted terrible. But it was food, and I needed food. I tore open one of the smaller foil packets and took an experimental taste.

Jam. It made the crackers almost palatable.

I washed it down with some foul-tasting water that I had also... appropriated. Part of me rebelled at drinking from someone else's bottle, but I needed water and the green plastic bottle was the easiest to take.

Who was I trying to fool? I was stealing. Stealing food. A Schnee, stealing food. It wasn't the fact that I had taken it, it was the indignity of having to take it that bothered me the most.

After finishing the crackers, I put the remaining sealed packages into my pouch and tossed the empty packaging away.

"You know, it's wrong to steal," a heavily accented voice told me.

In one smooth motion, I turned on my heels and drew Myrtenaster. A girl, perhaps my age, dressed in a dirty green hoodie and torn jeans stood at the end of the alley. I kept my sword raised as she stepped slowly toward me.

"My name is Katya." She raised her hands. "I am not enemy. I will not report."

Seeing that she wasn't a threat, I re-attached Myrtenaster. No need to be paranoid, even though I had no idea where I was, who was friendly and who was the enemy. Okay, there was a need to be paranoid.

She asked, "You say you are Weiss Schnee, correct?"

I beamed. "Finally, some recognition!"

"Before this war, before all this, I watch Ruby all the time," she said, motioning for me to follow. "Yes, you may say I am recognize."

_That's a bit creepy_, I thought about saying. But that's probably not what she meant. The people here didn't seem to speak Valic well, and I decided to assume that she was trying to say something far more benign.

Maybe she watched our team? "You've been to Beacon?"

She laughed, a surprisingly bright laugh considering the circumstances. "No, is dream, but impossible, yes? Would like to escape, but think about, and ask, is Vale better than Donetsk? It look bright, but many problem."

She stopped herself. "I am sorry, I am rambling."

Donetsk... what was Donetsk? "I keep hearing about Donetsk, and sometimes Donbass or Novorossiya. Is that where this is?"

Katya nodded. "This is Donetsk, part of Donbass region. Some people call it Novorossiya, or New Russia. But we not part of Russia, we part of Ukraine- at least, for now."

I replied honestly, "I have no idea where any of those places are."

"You know where Russia is, at least?"

I assumed that was a place, but it wasn't one I had heard of before. "No."

Katya looked confused. "How do you get here? Why you come here? Strange to see costume person here."

Costume person? What did that even mean? I answered the question I understood. "I don't remember."

"Oh, I see," she said. "Do you remember where you come from, at least?"

"Vale. I mean, I'm from Atlas, but the last I remember was Vale."

She actually laughed at that. "My God, even with the city blow up around you, you no break character. Maybe you hit head?"

Why does everyone seem to think I'm not the real Weiss?

I arched an eyebrow. "I know I've said this before, but I am actually Weiss Schnee."

She shrugged. "If you insist. World has gone crazy, you know?"

I asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"For long time, Ukraine and Russia are allies, yes, we feel, how you say, with both, but is not problem. Now, brothers fight brothers for no reason, everything we build is destroyed, and I am standing beside girl dressed as Weiss Schnee who insists she is."

"I told you already, I _am_ Weiss Schnee," I said, exasperated. "Why is that so hard to understand?"

"Because you are not real."

"If I wasn't real, would I be standing here?" I stopped and spread my arms for emphasis.

"Well, you are real, you are there, but you are not real, you are fiction. Yes?"

I glared at her. "No. Explain."

"You, uh, Weiss Schnee, from show call Ruby. Is style like Japanese anime, but made in America. About girls who are hunter, fight monsters and criminals. Go to academy call Beacon, live in place call Vale, on planet call Remnant."

"That sounds... right, actually." This was getting more and more confusing by the minute. "Wait, so this isn't Remnant at all?"

"You actually think it Remnant?" Katya laughed heartily. "No, this Earth! No Grimm, no Hunter, no Faunas, lot of conflict and war."

What? No, that couldn't be right. She must be crazy.

I was the one out of place? I had somehow ended on another world. One where I was a character in some animated show. Apparently, this world didn't have Grimm or Faunas, and there were no huntsmen or huntresses.

But what if I _was_ crazy? What if I wasn't really Weiss Schnee? What if I was just some obscessed fan that hit her head and woke up thinking she really was Weiss Schnee?

_No. I am Weiss Schnee and I will focus._ I forced myself to set it aside for the moment. I couldn't waste time on wild speculation. I needed a plan, I needed to think. I needed to get out of here. I needed to find my teammates if I could. I was tired. I was still hungry. I couldn't think. _Weiss, get your act together._

There was something else I wanted to know, which was admittedly a bit vain. "This Ruby thing, is it popular?"

Katya shrugged. "Is popular in America and Japan, but not so popular here. Before war, I try to introduce to others because I like, but I think not many like. Not so popular."

"This is a convenient coincidence, isn't it?" I muttered. Of course I had to meet the one fan in the whole city.

Katya must have heard me. She laughed quietly. "It is not coincidence. I see princess, I think, she look like Weiss! I say to father, who is fighter also, I want to meet her. He say he not make video, but he see what he can do. When he not come back, and look safe, I say, I try to find her myself. And I do."

This could be awkward. Dmitri mentioned that he had a daughter that loved the show I was apparently in. "Your father is Dmitri?"

"Was," she corrected grimly. "I know already. He fight for what believe in, he is killed. Is sad real."

"That must be hard for you," I said as sympathetically as possible. I had lost uncles, aunts, cousins, and family friends to the White Fang. For a while, it was nearly constant. So-and-so had been murdered, the investigation was ongoing (but we knew who it was), the funeral would be next week (and heavily guarded). Sometimes I felt it more than others.

"I already lose uncle, brother to war. Death is constant for me, but life goes on." Her face turned impassive again, and she shrugged. "You become numb. Such is war."

Such it is. But it shouldn't be.

"Well, this is home, at least, this is home now," Katya said, motioning me into what looked like a dimly-lit basement. Several other people nodded at us as we entered. It was dark, cramped, and smelled terrible.

"How long have you been living here?" I asked quietly.

"Since a few days after the shelling started," she explained soberly. "Our home was destroyed, we lost mostly everything. It was peaceful, we doing well, but now."

She gestured around the dungeon. "Is probably best to stay here for now."

I found a place to sit down. The concrete floor was cold and hard. That wasn't something I was used to, but I found it pleasant nonetheless.

Cold and hard like me. The Ice Princess.

I pulled out my scroll and opened it up, which garnered a few odd looks. I ignored them. I opened up the notes app, swiped aside Ruby's ridiculous drawing (I knew I shouldn't have let that dunce near my scroll) and started writing.

What did I know? Well, what had I been told. It could all be an elaborate scheme by Torchwick or the White Fang. It didn't seem like it, though, and I decided to assume this was all real.

I jotted that down. _Assumptions: This is real, and I am Weiss Schnee._

Where was this place? I jotted down the words I had heard earlier. Russia, Ukraine, Novorossiya, Donbass, Donetsk. A few more that came across as not as tightly related: Earth, Europe, West, and East to go with it, America.

I connected the words. Russia and Ukraine, separate... kingdoms, I suppose. Novorossiya, part of the Ukraine which wanted to be part of Russia. Donetsk inside Donbass inside Novorossiya. Europe could be the continent, maybe. East and West were directions, Russia presumably East and the other way must be West. America was... somewhere. A kingdom, probably. I drew a big circle around the whole thing and labelled it Earth. It was a fascinating map, probably accurate enough, and uselessly meaningless.

Next question. How did I get here? I searched my mind, and I couldn't remember. I remembered the night at the docks, I remember going back to Beacon, I remembered some scattered times at Beacon, and then I remembered waking up in a pile of rubble.

That was disturbingly close to supporting the "I'm not Weiss" theory. That was, however, a line of thinking that could be explored later. I had decided to assume that I was Weiss Schnee.

What am I thinking? _Of course I'm Weiss Schnee._

Perhaps the event that had brought me here had damaged my memory. Travelling between worlds could not be easy- I didn't even believe it was possible, but I had to assume it was. Perhaps it had been a violent occurrence that had affected me physically or via my Aura. I wrote all that down.

What about Dust? I had not seen any, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. I had seen plenty of evidence of Dust, in any case. Large vehicles, technology only slightly behind our own. So there had to be Dust, even if it was hidden.

No Faunas, no Grimm. No reason for racial tension, then. Unfortunately, there were plenty of reasons for war and hate, and these people seem to have found them. No Grimm, no huntsmen and huntresses. That made sense. Without the creatures of Grimm, they would have only each other to fight.

Fighting. I hadn't seen much, but it seemed to be different than on Remnant. What were Dmitri's last words? Stay down, or you will die? And then the wall exploded and there was no more Dmitri. That was an explosive, a powerful one. So their weapons were well developed. But these were rebels, probably amateurs. Not a good judge of capability of, well, anything.

Last, Ruby, the animation. Apparently we were a work of fiction here. That didn't make any sense, but I suppose it was no stranger than ending up here in the first place. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to make of that. There were a lot of existential questions and some practical ones. Maybe the creator would have some answers to-

"Vstavay! Vyyti!" a soldier shouted, entering the bomb shelter with his weapon raised. Four more came in behind him, training their guns around the room. Their tactics were horrible, but they seemed more profressional than the others I met. "Up! Out!"

The soldiers began motioning for the people to leave, shouting at them in that strange language. They grabbed what they could and cleared out quickly, some of them glaring angrily at the soldiers. I tried to go with them, but one of the men held up his hand and pointed his gun at me. I stepped back, moving my left hand toward Myrtenaster.

The lead soldier turned to me and asked in haltingly bad Valic. "Are you girl in video?"

"She match description," one of the other soldiers said, training his weapon on me. This was giving me a bad feeling. "You are one they think Princess, you are Weiss Schnee."

"Why are you asking?" I replied icily, standing my ground. I had no idea how capable these men were, but they didn't seem that impressive so far. With that being said, once a fight started, they could be serious trouble. Then again, they were rough-looking soldiers with very stodgy looking weapons.

"You must come with us, immediately," the leading soldier replied. "We take you to secure place."

That didn't sound good. I tensed up. "You know, this is the third time this has happened in the past two days. Who are you?"

"I am sorry. We are, uh," he searched for the right words. "We are, uh, spetsialny regiment. But is legitimate of volunteer."

"Really?" I asked. I guess he was trying to say they were legitimate. "You'll forgive me if I'm not so trusting. I don't know who you work for or who you want."

The soldiers shared brief glances of unease. "We, uh, we guarantee safety. Will explain after."

"No," I snapped.

"Is not choice-"

"I'm not going with some men I don't know, with motives I don't know, working for who knows, to some place I haven't even been informed of. You can explain it to me here, and then I will decide if I want to come with you or not."

"I am sorry, but we have order," the soldier in the lead said apologetically. He moved toward me, reaching for Myrtenaster. Disarm and arrest.

He was slow, far too slow. I ducked out of the way, drawing my rapier and driving it through the man's gut. He gasped and choked as I pulled out my sword, once again covered in blood. Did people on Earth bleed more than on Remnant?

One of the other men rushed at me with his gun in the air. I dove toward him, severing his ankles with my blade. That shouldn't have happened. He screamed in agony, dropping the gun and falling to the floor.

Three left. One of the men raised his rifle and fired two shots at my legs. It was totally ineffective- these bullets weren't even very powerful. He started shooting again, but before he could get his bullets on target I had rushed behind him and driven Mytenaster through his back.

The other two opened fire, and I put a glyph between us. It wouldn't hold, but it did distract them more than I expected. While they were confused, I switched Myrtenaster to blue dust, and with a practised swing sent a wave of ice toward the remaining two soldiers. It didn't just make them pause- they screamed in pain as they froze to death.

It wasn't the first time I had taken a life. But this felt... different. It was brutal. It was confused. It was violent and bloody, literally. They were soldiers. They were pathetic. It felt wrong. But necessary.

I didn't have a lot of time to think. Katya stepped into the doorway. "Yob tvoyu maht!"

* * *

Review replies are ordered from oldest to newest. I've only replied to reviews where there is something significant to reply to. It's not that I don't appreciate any and all comments, I'm just kind of pressed for time and I apologize for that.

_Happy1K1nob1_: Happy ending... maybe. One of the goals for this fic is realism, so we won't be seeing an alternate universe golem Penny. That does not mean we won't be seeing Penny, or that we will be.

_funvince_: Mostly something to fall back to.

_mikel2814_: Look closely at the book cover. There are clues there. Also, the titles for Act III and Act IV are (subject to change) Urban Panther and Stolen Flame.

_onerustybucket_: Retraction issued, a few comments, and it's gone. Maybe some people will remember, though. We'll look at this later, I promise.

_Jlargent_: Because I know almost nothing about it. I'm trying to write what I know with this fic, which means that anime references are mostly out of the cards.

_funvince_: The lady at the consulate looked it up on the Internet.

_Robert Teague_: We'll see much more of the RWBY characters later in the story. Regarding current political situations, I disagree. In five years it will be more important to have the explanation in the story, because nobody will remember or care what I'm talking about, yet it is critical to the plot.

_HeroBladeRiyet_: Not sure how this would break reality. If I remember correctly, at least one company actually did this to rescue employees held hostage by terrorists.


	15. Operation Snowblind

Shorter chapter this time, but important and I think it gets mostly everything across.

Just so you know, I'm never doing this alternating chapters/alternating perspectives thing again after the conclusion of Ice Princess. At least, not for the next two acts. Maybe Act V.

Once again, review replies are at the bottom.

* * *

_**15: Operation Snowblind**_

**Cliff**

"No fucking way."

Was this someone trolling, or did we really have a point of contact in Donetsk? Carefully, word-by-word, I read the comment again.

_Hello, I am in Donetsk and I meet her. This is not Princess Anastasia, this is Weiss Schnee (of RWBY) cosplayer. She is very lost and think she actually Weiss Schnee. If anyone know about who this, would be very helpful. Internet very infrequent in Donetsk but I try to reply._

My first thought was just to fire off an email right there.

But what do I say? Hi, I'm in Canada and we have Ruby Rose over here, please bring Weiss over here so we can ship some White Rose? Hey, hold tight as the city crumbles around you, we'll be right there to pick you up? Meet you halfway, please pack up Myrtenaster for shipping?

Shit. I'm _really_ bad at communicating with people, especially just before dinner. I flicked my mouse to the systray and opened Skype, sending a text message with a link to the comment to Sam.

_Cliff Leblanc: fifteen comments or so down_

_Sam The Greek: this real?_

_Cliff Leblanc: Check it._

_Sam The Greek: seems legit_

_Cliff Leblanc: Sarcasm or no?_

_Sam The Greek: both?_

_Cliff Leblanc: This is serious!_

_Sam The Greek: yeah, yeah, I know_

_Sam The Greek: you should send a response_

_Cliff Leblanc: I don't know what to say._

_Cliff Leblanc: You do it._

_Sam The Greek: fine, what do I say_

_Cliff Leblanc: Up to you. I have no idea, but we need to get contact with him._

_Cliff Leblanc: If this is real, he could help us get Weiss back here._

_Cliff Leblanc: But don't reveal too much, beacuase NSA_

_Sam The Greek: nsa lol_

_Sam The Greek: yeah, ill do it_

"Cliff-kun, supper ready!" Uncle Fujimori called from the kitchen, interrupting our conversation. Hopefully dinner wouldn't be shit this time.

"I'll be there in a minute!" I shouted back, hammering out a quick message.

_Cliff Leblanc: Gotta go to dinner. Try to get the guys together tonight, this is urgent._

* * *

**Sam**

"So, what exactly is so important that we had to get together in Metrotown an hour before the mall closes?" Ben asked, irritated. I couldn't say I blamed him.

"You didn't explain?" Cliff hissed at me.

"Weiss Schnee," I stated.

"What about her, what about her? Can we get her yet?" Ruby asked hopefully.

"Hold on," I said, holding up my hand. "Okay, a couple of hours ago, Cliff sends me this thing over Skype. It's a comment on the original Princess Anastasia Video. Someone in Donetsk, a RWBY fan, found Weiss. He thinks she's a confused cosplayer."

"Well, this makes things easier," Isaac pointed out, quickly adding, "If it's legitimate."

"I sent an email. Just before I left for the mall, I got this reply," I said, then read out the message in its entirety.

"Is very bad situation. Maybe real Weiss, she kill soldiers. Say they are special regiment send to get her, she not let, kill with sword. In danger. Try to Kiev. Katya out."

"You think it's legit?" Ben asked.

"He seems to be honest," I replied. "I have no way of confirming it, but I've asked him to send a picture or-"

"He's a she," Cliff pointed out.

"What?" I asked.

"Katya's a girl's name," he replied. "I think. Then again, it is Russian, which is weird."

"Ukrainian," Isaac corrected.

"Nope, almost certainly Russian. Donetsk is Russian-speaking-"

"That's why they're mad!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Yes, Ruby, that's why they're mad."

I cleared my throat. "Okay, I think _she_ is legitimate. What do you think?"

Cliff shrugged. "Why lie?"

Jen added, "I agree. There's no point! I just don't see there being anything to gain by faking this."

"Maybe they're trying to draw us out?"

"Who's they?" Cliff said, shrugging again. "The government? Government isn't evil here. If anyone even noticed, it was probably some desk jockey who dismissed the whole thing as a joke after a quick Google search."

"Extortion?" I asked.

Cliff shook his head. "From who?"

"Let's assume this is legitimate," I said. "So how does this affect our plans?"

"What plans?" Cliff snarked cynically.

"We don't have to go to Donetsk," Jen replied. "That makes things a lot easier and a lot safer."

"That is if Katya can get Weiss to Kyiv," I added.

"Yes. It would make things a lot easier, but we can't rely on that. Still, if she can get Weiss out of Donbass at least, that would make this much easier."

"We still gotta get her out of the country," Cliff added.

"I know," I replied. "Have you figured out the passports yet?"

"No," he admitted.

"Okay, we're gonna need to communicate and coordinate with Katya," I said. "I hope she has a phone. I'm going to try to get her number."

"So, who's on the ground team?" Cliff asked after a pause. "Shotty not."

"We already talked about Ruby," I replied. "I'd rather not do it, but I can probably get by even if I miss a week of classes."

"I'm working," Ben said immediately.

"I can probably take some time off for this," Isaac said.

"You'll probably fail out of your program," Cliff told him.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

"I can get time off," Jen replied. "Classes I'd rather not miss, but I can recover. If nobody else can go, I will."

"So, myself, Jen, and Isaac?" I concluded. I received nods in reply.

"So, what's our timeline?" Jen asked. "Still one week?"

"One week if we can swing it," I replied. "We leave for Poland tomorrow if there's a flight. Then it's a train to Kyiv, that's maybe a day-"

"A train?" Isaac asked. "I thought we were driving."

"Do you have a driver's license that's valid in Poland and the Ukraine?" I asked rhetorically. "No, it'll be easier to get past the border this way too. So by Wednesday we're in Kyiv. We meet Katya, pick up Weiss, get her a fake passport. Should be able to take a train home and fly out by the end of the weekend."

"That's less than a week," Cliff observed.

"I know. We have extra time in case we run into trouble and have to go further east, or if getting a passport for Weiss takes a long time. Speaking of which, do you have a source yet?"

"I'm, uh, still working on that," Cliff admitted.

I turned to Isaac. "Did you get the money yet?"

"You're asking me to ask someone who isn't actually rich to dump thousands of dollars into a shaky and scammy sounding scheme," Isaac replied quietly.

I repeated, "Isaac, did you get the money yet?"

He sighed. "Monty said that he'll see what he can do, but he wants to see a decent plan first."

"I can respect that," Cliff muttered.

I nodded. "Agreed. We're gonna give him one by the end of the night, and hope for the best."

Quietly, Isaac asked, "What do we call this thing?"

"Operation Fall Weiss!" Ruby shouted out.

There was a deathly silence. Finally, Cliff snarked, "Why don't you just call it Operation Invade Poland?"

"Uh..."

"Fall Weiss," Cliff repeated. "Plan White. Nazi codename for the invasion of Poland, 1939. Seriously, why would you even suggest that?"

"Well, because it's fall, which is a season like winter, and Weiss is like the snow princess which makes me think of winter, and fall is before winter, and we're going to get Weiss, and-"

"You know what, forget it, I'm not going to pretend to understand your logic," Cliff dismissed. "But we still need a name."

"We don't need a name," Ben disagreed.

"Yeah we do," I countered.

"How about Operation Snowblind?" Jen suggested.

"Snowblind?" I muttered. "That sounds good. Any objections?"

There were none. "Good. Let's get Operation Snowblind on the road."

* * *

Review replies!

ArsenioDev: Already PM'd, but in case anyone is curious, Into The Fire by bale626.

HeroBladeRiyet: Really not sure what you mean here. PMCs are (mostly) public companies, and contacting them is as easy as contacting any other. They probably could extract Weiss, but it won't be cheap.

Happy1K1nob1: Thanks for the review, but I'm really not sure why you're sharing recipes in it...

GeoffRox24: I'm not going to say no, not ever, but I'm not putting in anyone else yet.

PFCDontKnow: Me too. I blame all the Tom Clancy novels I've read.

Fourze: I won't answer this, because it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out yourself. But it's not Sam.

Guest 1997: No firm plans for JNPR yet. The arrival locations for Blake and Yang are already set (and mostly revealed). I'm not going to say more than that.

Guest762: You have one location correct and one incorrect. And Yang will have plenty to beat up.

To those suggesting locations, they're already decided for RWBY. To those speculating, look closely at the cover image.


	16. Not a Fascist

If you haven't already, check out Emergence: Asides.

Road trip episode, except it's set in the Ukraine. I will probably write a companion Aside about the old couple, but I'm not going to promise anything because I'm quite busy. I totally didn't get lazy toward the end, by the way.

I used Google Translate again. If you speak the language, please PM me corrections.

Review replies are at the end again.

* * *

_**16: Not a Fascist**_

_**Weiss Schnee**_

"Don't worry, it will be fine," Katya reassured me one last time before we stepped toward the checkpoint.

After I had killed those soldiers, Katya had walked in. She told me they were Russian soldiers, that they were after me, and we had to leave immediately. She handed me some old, dirty, and disgusting clothes that I reluctantly donned. We also grabbed some food, water, and bags to put our stuff (okay, mostly my stuff), in.

A guard with one of those archaic rifles (called a Kalash, apparently) stood in our path. We stopped, and Katya exchanged words in that strange language (Russian? Ukrainian?) with him.

I was tense. Myrtenaster was in my borrowed duffle bag with my combat dress, and it was disassembled. I still had my glyphs, and apparently the people here broke easily, but it still made me nervous.

"Okay, we can go through," Katya told me after what seemed like a much longer time than it probably was. The guard stepped aside, and we stepped through.

"Spasiba," she said to the guards as we passed.

"Spassibo," I tried to repeat, failing miserably. One of the guards gave me an odd look before shrugging and turning away.

"So, where are we going to go?" I asked as we walked away from the checkpoint. Katya had stressed very heavily that we had to leave immediately, but she had never actually said where we were going.

"I have family in Kiev," she replied. "They take, problem is get there."

"So why did you stay in Donetsk?" It was a terrible place for a girl like her to be- for anyone to be. Katya had explained what they meant by bombing. Apparently there was something called a BM-21, which you could put on one side of a hill and fire indiscriminately toward civilians. I presumed it was supposed to be used some other way, perhaps against an advancing army.

She stressed that there was a ceasefire and the violence was supposed to stop, that the people fighting were simply holding out. Hopefully the fighting would end soon, but the people sent to get me- Russians, apparently- would not stop trying to get me.

Why did they want me, anyway? Did _they_ believe I was really Weiss Schnee? None of it made any sense.

"It was safer to stay than to try leave," Katya replied simply. "Now, it safer to leave than stay."

"Why are you doing this for me?" I asked. This wasn't her fight. I was a fictional character, or someone like her. I had no relationship to her and no reason to be here. "Why not just turn me in?"

I wouldn't like it, but I would understand. I would say I would do the same in a heartbeat... but I'm not so sure anymore.

"Is wrong, you know?" she replied. "My parent say, you help those in need. And in Donetsk, that is what happen. You girl my age, we could be friend. I help you."

"I don't understand."

"It wrong to turn you over to soldiers, so I help instead."

"Okay." I sort of followed her reasoning. Why couldn't she have better Valic?

After we had walked for five minutes or so, Katya began trying to wave down passing vehicles, of which they were few. Eventually an old truck stopped beside us. The man inside called something in that strange language, and Katya replied. I had no idea what they were saying. I caught Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk as a response, but I don't know what that meant.

"We have ride," Katya announced, motioning me to get into the old, dirty, smelly vehicle. It was very tight inside- I think the front was only meant for two people. I ended up sandwiched between Katya and the driver, a dirty, smelly old man who grinned lecherously at me. I frowned and looked away.

* * *

Perhaps an hour later, the situation came to a head. The driver decided he would try to get a feel. Well, I would not stand for that. I heard (and felt) a distinct crack as the back of my left hand impacted his face.

He screamed in pain, hammering on the brakes and bringing the truck to a stop. He clutched his face, moaning out what I assumed were obscenities.

"Get out!" I shouted at Katya. She quickly opened the door and hopped out of the vehicle. I grabbed my bag and followed.

"Run!" I ordered, then added more diplomatically, "Let's get out of here before he gets up!"

"I do not think he get back up!" Katya replied tensely as we bolted away from the truck. "I think you hit hard!"

"It wasn't _that_ hard," I protested. Well, okay, I was disgusted and it may have been a pretty hard backhand. "It's not like I broke his... jaw..."

Oh. So _that's_ what that cracking was.

"Katya, I've been meaning to ask you something," I began. She slowed to a fast walk, and I followed. "Why are people here injured so easily?"

"What you mean?" she asked.

"I didn't hit him that hard. I mean, it shouldn't have broken his jaw," I explained. "Those soldiers I, well, those soldiers I killed, when I hit them with Myrtenaster they just kind of... exploded."

Katya was silent, a ponderous look on her face. She slowed down and stopped.

"Katya?"

"It make sense if you are Weiss," she said finally, like it was some great revolution.

"That's what I've been saying for the past two days!"

"But it not make sense! This Earth, not Remnant! Real world! How this happen? Cannot happen!"

"How do you think I feel?" I replied, rounding on her. "I am a fictional character in this world. Unfortunately, I don't have time to deal with the resulting existential crisis, because I have ended up in the middle of a war that operates by completely different rules than the ones I know. I am in an unfamiliar land surrounded by people who speak a language I have never heard before."

Quietly, Katya asked, "But how do I believe?"

"I can prove it," I said. Raising my right hand, I summoned a glyph. It was a simple one that could act as a temporary platform, and it dissipated a few seconds later.

"Yob tvoyu maht!" Katya shouted.

"What does that even mean?" I asked, but I didn't get a reply.

"Eto ochen' grubyy yazyk dlya molodoy devushki," a voice called from the road. An old brown car was stopped beside us. An elderly woman leaned out the window. "Vy nuzhdayetes' v poyezdke v Dnepropetrovsk?"

Katya replied, "Dnepropetrovsk? Da."

They exchanged some rapid-fire word in that language, and then Katya opened the back door and motioned me in.

I followed, hissing, "This better not be a repeat of what just happened."

"They are nice old grandparents," Katya assured me. "Will be fine. Besides, you are, well..."

The driver, an old man with next to no hair, turned in his seat and said something to me.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

Katya said something to him, and he nodded in understanding. In forced Valic, the old man said, "Please relax, try enjoy ride."

I leaned back into the seat and tried to follow the advice, but I couldn't. I was too tense, and too busy thinking about the current situation.

* * *

I didn't know exactly how long it took to get to our destination. I had packed my scroll away in my backpack and couldn't get to it. It felt like an hour or two, and by the time we had arrived it was starting to get dark. I saw what looked like an old house in a mostly open field. I guess this was where they lived.

The old couple had spent most of the trip talking to Katya. Occasionally, Katya would translate and repeat something to me. From what I gathered, most of the conversation was a one sided mixture of sob story and condemnation of war. The old man mentioned something called the Great Patriotic War, which I doubted was either great or patriotic, and also mentioned a place called Afghanistan.

"Is this Dnepropetrovsk?" I asked as I stepped out of the car, badly butchering the pronunciation.

"No, is house, some, uh, outside city," the old man explained. He said something to Katya.

She repeated to me, "He say we stay night here, then he take to Dnepropetrovsk in morning. He say it not far."

"Oh, I rude, I forget," the old woman said as we walked toward the house. "What is name?"

"Weiss Schnee."

"You are German?" She narrowed her eyes. "I hope you not Nazi or other fascist."

"I don't even know what that is," I replied honestly. _I guess it's something bad._

She smiled a thin smile. "Then we have no problem. Come inside, da."

I stepped inside the house. It was old, dark, and dirty, but in its own way homely and cozy. A place that would appeal to someone like Ruby more than it appealed to me. There were little things and pictures scattered on nearly every available surface.

A few pictures and what looked like a pair of military medals sat on the hearth above the fireplace. I walked over to get a closer look. The first medal sat beside a black-and-white picture of a smiling young soldier and another photograph of a happy family. The medal itself was brass, with a large red star overlaid on it and a red circle with a hammer and sickle over it. There was a bit of text - OTEYECTBEHHAR BONHA. I don't think that was how it was supposed to be read.

The other medal also had pictures clustered around it. These ones were in colour, although they were faded. They showed another young soldier, carrying a newer looking rifle and more equipment. He, too, was smiling. The medal itself was a simple brass star, with no text on the front.

These weren't the old man's decorations. These were family members they had lost. I looked away and followed Katya to the dining room table.

Dinner was pleasant, if quiet. The food was like the couple and the house- simple, but well-meaning. It was definitely much better than the packaged food I had eaten earlier. It was something between soup and stew, along with bread and mixed vegetables. It was tasty enough, but even after seconds I wasn't really satisfied.

That struck me as odd. I didn't know I ate that much. In fact, I usually don't. I need to keep my trim figure, you know.

"Do not have room, but two couch," the old man explained apologetically after dinner, motioning to the living room. "Get blanket."

"Thank you," I replied politely. I was not looking forward to sleeping on the couch, but at least I was going to get some sleep tonight.

I sat down beside Katya on one of the couches. It instantly sank beneath my not very substantial weight. My guess was that it had been destroyed for years.

"I am sorry, I forget tell you, because we busy," she told me, pulling out what looked like a small scroll. "I check video, put comment, get message. Before leave Donetsk, I send. I not read well, you read."

She handed me the scroll, which I gingerly took. There was a menu bar at the top and some symbols on the side, flanking a triplet of messages written in Valic in the middle.

_I think we might know this girl. There's a Weiss that we've lost contact wit. Can you tell us moar?_

_Is very bad situation. Maybe real Weiss, she kill soldiers. Say they are special regiment send to get her, she not let, kill with sword. In danger. Try to Kiev. Katya out._

_Okay, here's the deal. You might be right about that being the real Weiss. We've got the real Ruby beside us in Canada. It sounds insane, but ask Weiss. She'll be able to prove it. We can't bring Ruby, but we're going to try to get to Ukraine. If you could meet us in Kiev that would be great. Maybe Thursday or Friday, depending on flights. I'll send more details as we get them._

"Ruby?" I asked incredulously, handing the mini-scroll back.

"I thought must be crazy, joke, not talk, then you Glyph," Katya explained.

"Well, maybe we can get answers from these people," I said after a moment of thought. "If they're not lying."

"That is always possibility," Katya agreed. "They send video, but too slow to watch. Try in Dnepropetrovsk or Kiev."

"Definitely." After a moment, I added. "But reply, if you can. Tell them... tell them to tell Ruby that I'd like to get Ice Flower working."

"Ice Flower?" Katya asked skeptically. Okay, good. That was something that wasn't on the show.

"It's a combo attack. She'll know what I mean." I added.

"Ah."

The old man returned with an armful of bedding. He announced, "Blanket," along with something in that other language. Then, more gently, he added, "Guten nacht, Weiss Schnee."

* * *

I didn't sleep well- I kept tossing and turning, running through everything I knew and not figuring out any answers. I tried to focus on accomplishing our current task- get to Kiev, wherever that was- but my mind kept wandering. How did I get here? Why was I here? Was Ruby also here? Where was here?

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. It felt like I woke up right after I fell asleep. The morning was a blur.

I remember breakfast. Toast and jam. Pleasant, but wholly unsatisfying.

I remember grabbing my bag and getting into the car. They said they would take us to Dnipropetrovsk Glavnij, the train station.

I remember getting out of the car and walking into the train station. It cost something like five hundred Hryvnia- I guess that was money like Lien- for the tickets. I remember that.

I remember Katya paying another hundred Hryvnia to one of the guards. I don't remember why.

I remember getting a chocolate bar and devouring it like Ruby devours cookies.

I remember going to the washroom, which was filthy and disgusting.

I remember the old man giving me a cup of vile coffee, saying I needed it. It was disgusting, but I drank it anyway.

The next thing I knew, we were on the platform, about to board the train.

"Good luck on journey," the old man told me, before pulling me into a rough hug. He released me after a moment, and the old lady did the same. They repeated it with Katya, except the sentiment was in a different language.

Wordlessly, I boarded the train. It occurred to me that even after all they had done for us, I had not even bothered to learn the old couple's names.

* * *

linkthetoaoftime: The general opinion of the world is that they deserve it.

Jacob Rickshaw: Ruby and Weiss both have symbols of their arrival location behind them. The same is true for Blake and Yang. They aren't here yet, so they're not completely visible. The white dot is Earth's moon, which looks better at higher resolution. There will be more characters later. As for Blake, well, one of the characters is going to have a bad experience, but it's not Blake.

crescentrosehvss: I'm actually not sure how easy this would be. You'd have to evade security to get near the plane, then evade the ground crew during loading and load check. You'd have to find a spot and stay quiet during the entire flight. Then you have to evade the ground crew and security again at the destination airport.

Guest762: It's not going to be pretty... make of that what you will.


	17. Coming Together

I thought about doing some kind of exotic anachronic order, but I'm feeling kind of uninspired so I did it as a linear sequence. I promise our team and Katya will meet next chapter.

I know there's probably some bad fails with linguistic conventions. I'm not sure if they use "Aunt" and "Uncle" at all. Call it an extended Translation Convention. I also realize that the timings don't line up. Sorry about that.

I think writing Ruby is even harder than writing Weiss. We'll see about Blake and Yang.

* * *

_**17: Coming Together**_

**Sam**

"So, are we ready?" I asked.

"I don't know, do that fancy stepped analysis shit," Cliff half-joked.

"Fine," I agreed. "Okay, Ruby's recording?"

"Yep."

I nodded. "Money?"

"Ten bitcoins," Isaac said.

"Plus some money from Ben and Jen, and my goddamn savings," Cliff added.

"Right, and most of it went into the airline tickets," I said.

"That was like three grand," Ben informed. "Lufthansa's fucking expensive."

"Anyone's expensive on this kind of short notice," Cliff countered.

"And how much do we have still have?" Isaac asked.

"One hundred Euros each, two hundred zloty each, plus another hundred US dollars and however much Canadian money we have in our wallets," Jen replied.

"And we have some more reserves in the bank," I added. "We'll need that to get Weiss her passport and ticket."

I turned to Cliff. "Speaking of which..."

"You have a list of potential contacts on your phone and another physical copy. Ordered by most likely to work to least likely to work. It'll cost between one and two thousand. You'll want to make that cash, US dollars or Euros. And you better be fucking thankful because I trawled the darknet for that shit. Some things you just cannot unsee."

"Okay, that money-"

"Hidden in our suitcases," Jen explained.

"Good." I paused. "Okay, let's go over the plan one more time."

"We fly out of YVR tonight," Jen explained. "It's a Lufthansa flight, with a stopover in Frankfurt. We'll arrive in Warsaw late tomorrow- that's Wednesday- and check into the Holiday Inn near the airport. The next day, we check out and board the train to Kyiv."

She paused. "Shouldn't you be explaining this?"

I shrugged. "Nah. Keep going."

"In Kyiv, we meet Katya, get Weiss, get a fake passport, and head back over the border into Poland. Then we book our return flights and fly home."

I chuckled. "Easy, right?"

"The only easy day was yesterday," Cliff joked.

* * *

**Ruby Rose**

I'd never been to an airport before and it was really cool. Cliff explained in the car that they didn't use airships on Earth, they used airplanes instead. We saw some from outside and inside the terminal. They weren't very big, but had ridiculous wings and huge engines. It drove along the ground speeding up before rising into the air.

The airport itself was neat too. It was a big building and there were lots of people. Some of them looked different and spoke languages I had never heard before. In the front of the airport there were check-in desks with lines and then there were stores and food and then security.

When we got to security the mood was solemn and stoic. Sam, Jen, and Isaac acted like they didn't want to go but they had to. Why weren't they excited for this mission? I knew I would be! I told them that.

Sam replied, "It's not gonna be easy, Ruby. There's a lot that could go wrong."

I shrugged. "It's not like it's dangerous. There's no Grimm and no bad guys."

"That's not the only kind of danger, Ruby," he told me. "We have to cross several borders, and on the way back we have to do it with a fake passport. We could get in a lot of trouble if we get caught."

"Well, good luck!" I said after a pause, then hugged Sam, then Jen, then Isaac.

"Good luck, guys," Cliff repeated, embracing his friends.

"Yeah, good luck on your trip and stuff," Ben said, only waving.

"I wish I could go with you guys," I said one last time.

"I know, Ruby," Sam replied. "Don't worry. We'll get Weiss back safe. That's a promise."

* * *

**Katya**

The girl stared out the window. I don't think she was interested in the countryside- she looked as if she was thinking.

And I was thinking as well. Who was this girl, really?

A RWBY cosplayer who lost her memory, probably hit in the head. That was the truth I had once accepted.

Then she killed the soldiers. Then I got the message from those people in Canada. Then she hit the man and broke his jaw. Then she showed me the Glyphs.

Any one you could say was fake. Just an elaborate staging. But all of it?

No. It must be an elaborate scheme. It could not be possible.

_Or is it?_

I guess I said that out loud. Her head snapped around. "What was that?"

"Or is it?" I asked again, in English this time.

"Or is what?"

"Or is possible?" I said rhetorically. "You could be really Weiss Schnee?"

"Why is this so hard for you to understand?"

"Look at from my view!" I insisted. "Favourite fictional character come to Donetsk. Donetsk, all place, Donetsk! Come from different world, not exist, come here, why? Then kill soldier, then we run. Make no sense!"

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. "Is easy for you to accept Earth, accept Remnant away?"

"No," Weiss replied quietly. "No, it isn't. You know that. I keep thinking this is impossible, it can't be real, yet I'm here. I don't believe it, but I have to."

"Then we share confusion," I said. "One way or other, we find out in Kiev."

* * *

**Isaac**

After the long flight to Frankfurt and the security we had to go through after, the arrival in Warsaw was relaxing by comparison.

That was one thing we didn't think of. The EU is all one big passport zone, called the Schengen Agreement. That meant that we had to go through customs in Frankfurt. Sam thought that we'd have to do it in Warsaw, and that we wouldn't have to do it in Frankfurt because it's just a connecting flight. But actually, it was the other way around.

That took a while but the lady at the counter was friendly and her English was really good, even though she had an accent. We didn't have any problems, but it might be harder to get Weiss through passport control at Frankfurt than it would be in Warsaw.

We made it onto the connecting flight easily, and the flight to Warsaw was really short. I thought the name of the airport (Chopin) was weird before Jen explained the history of the composer. That took most of the flight, actually. So we landed, breezed through security, and stepped out into the lobby of the airport.

It's funny. I always thought of Poland as this kind of backwards, poor, not very nice country, but Warsaw Chopin Airport was really modern and nice. I'd even say it was every bit as nice as YVR. There weren't any weird junky old planes on the runways either, they were all newish Boings and Airbusses.

"Did you just call them Boings?" Jen asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"I said that out loud?"

"Yeah, you did," she replied. "And it's Boeing. Boe-ing. Boeing. Not Boing."

"Guys, I think we missed the bus," Sam interrupted. That wasn't good.

"What a great start," I muttered.

* * *

**Katya**

"Uncle Vladimir!" I greeted as the door opened.

An older man with bright blue eyes and greying brown hair greeted back, loudly, "Yekaterina? I was worried sick for you!"

"Where is your father?"

I said nothing.

"I am so sorry, child," he said gently, drawing me into a tight, comforting hug. It must have been hard for him. After all, my father was his brother, too.

He let me go and asked, "Who is your friend?"

I motioned to Weiss. "Weiss?"

"Good evening, sir," she greeted formally. "I am Weiss Schnee."

"Do not be so formal, it is fine," my uncle said to her in English. "I am Vladimir. I am, how you say, uncle of Katya."

He motioned us inside the apartment, muttering to me. "She's a German? That name sounds familiar somehow."

"Weiss Schnee is from RWBY," I told him. "It's that web show I like."

"So she's using a fake name?" my uncle asked, suspicious.

"Not exactly, Uncle Vladimir."

"How so?"

"Uh... well, some people dress up as characters for events and stuff," I explained. "When I found this girl, she was in costume. I think she hit her head, maybe because of a bomb. She believes she is actually Weiss Schnee."

"We should take her to the hospital, then," Uncle Vladimir replied as we sat down in the small living room.

"I don't know how to say this, but she might actually be the real Weiss Schnee."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm actually... well, not sure, but I think she might be telling the truth."

"Fuck your mother!" he exclaimed in response, then apologized. "Sorry. But that's impossible!"

"That is exactly the same thing I thought, but she showed me some things that only Weiss can do. It's like magic, almost," I explained, simplifying it for my uncle. "And then these other people contacted me and said they found one of Weiss' teammates."

"Do you think they are telling the truth?"

"I'm hoping to meet them somewhere in the city tomorrow, hopefully," I explained, shrugging.

"That could be dangerous," he cautioned. "You don't know who these people are or what they want. They could be trying to take advantage of you."

"I just came from Donetsk, Uncle Vladimir," I said. "Besides, she'll be with me."

"Her?" Vladimir asked, motioning to Weiss, who was nervously examining her nails. "What is this show about, anyway?"

He waved his arms. "Nevermind. Tatyana will be here in half an hour with dinner. I shall play host to our guest in the meantime."

* * *

**Sam**

Fortunately, the hotel had free wi-fi, like virtually every hotel at home. I pulled IvyTosh out of my bag, set it on the desk and plugged in the power cable. I booted it up, logged into the wi-fi, and started Skype. It took a moment to log in, and I selected Katya from my list of contacts.

"And we're in," I announced to nobody in particular, then typed out a message. I decided to use proper sentences, hopefully leaving a good impression.

_We're in Warsaw now. Hopefully we'll make the train to Kyiv tomorrow. Where and when should we meet?_

I waited about ten seconds before a reply popped up.

_I am stay with family, not busy. Any time and place, can probably get. Your specify._

Immediately, I typed in a reply.

_How about Euromaidan at about two in the afternoon, by the statue?_

"Euromaidan?" Jen asked from behind me. "It's just called Maidan."

"I call bullshit." It was actually the only name I had remembered from Kyiv, even after all the research we did for the trip.

_It called Maidan Nezalezhnosti or just Maidan. Euromaidan is event. But meet there time place okay._

"Okay, you're right," I muttered, embarrassed. Jen laughed as I typed out my response.

_Good. See you there._

There was no reply for what felt like close to a minute, then finally:

_I do have one question. Where is Ruby and what exactly is going on?_

That's a bit different, like a different person different. I decided to take a risk and replied:

_That's two questions, Weiss._

Almost instantly, I got a response that I could just imagine in her indignant voice.

_How did you know it was me?_

I typed in:

_No offence to Katya, but your English is a lot better._

Her reply came quickly.

_English?_

As in, you know, the language we're using. Then again, I seemed to recall Ruby calling it something else, though I couldn't remember what.

_You probably know it as something else. It's the language we're using._

_Of course._

Whatever that meant. I decided to proceed with more pressing matters.

_So, how do we find you tomorrow? Are you going to be dressed up as Weiss?_

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Isaac commented. "Dressing as Weiss, I mean."

_I am Weiss._

Well, yeah. We know that.

_You know what I mean._

There was a pause, about thirty seconds with no communication. Then, finally, a response which I also imagined as indignant.

_Old blue hoodie, jeans, sneakers. Not my choice. What are you going to look like?_

I stifled a laugh at seeing the snow princess Weiss dressed like that. After a moment's thought, I typed up a description.

_Two guys, one girl, late teens, acting like loud tourists, taking a lot of pictures._

The response was quick.

_Got it. See you tomorrow._


	18. Meet In The Middle

Finally, they meet! We're on the home stretch. I will admit that Ice Princess has been kind of rushed, and I do apologize again. Also, I totally made up the passport acquisition procedure. I was not going to trawl the deepweb for actual accounts of instructions to write a fanfic. Sorry guys, but even I have limits. And yes, I know where that quote actually comes from.

Review replies are, as usual, at the bottom.

* * *

_**8: Meet In The Middle**_

_**Sam**_

"So this is Kyiv," I announced quietly to our group.

Kiev Central was nice. Not just kind of nice or a little bit nice, either. It was a very, very fancy station. Big, open atrium with marble, stone, and old looking carvings and stuff. The main hall was lit by gigantic chandeliers. It made me think of a big fancy station from maybe Britain or a European style one from the 1920s US or something. Definitely not something I expected from a country that suffered from Communism for eighty years.

"Yeah," Isaac agreed.

"It's lovely," Jen added. "But..."

"We should get moving," I said. "Yeah, I know."

We left Kiev Central and walked the short distance to Vokzalna, the nearby metro station. Though it lacked the grandeur and felt a little more Soviet, it was pretty nice, too. As much as I liked the ultra-modern Canada Line, there was a certain charm the Kyiv Metro had that SkyTrain did not. I guess the Soviets could do things right if they put their minds to it.

"This way," I said, motioning to the ticket booth, uselessly labelled _KacN_. There was a short line, so we lined up behind them.

"Hey, we're in the metro, like Metro 2033," Isaac said jokingly.

"Wrong metro, dumbass," I replied in the same tone. More seriously, I asked, "How many tickets do we need?"

"Just the three, I think," Isaac replied. "We can get more on the way back."

When we got to the front of the line, the lady at the counter said something to me in Ukrainian which I didn't understand. I handed her a red ten hryvnia (one of the ones we'd picked up in Warsaw) and held up three fingers. She smiled and handed back three plastic tokens and a pair of two-hyrvnia bills.

"Khreshchatyk, right?" Isaac asked as we headed through the gates using our newly acquired plastic tokens.

I nodded.

"What does that look like in Cyrillic?" He asked as we stepped onto the platform.

"It's the third station after this one," Jen replied, shrugging. "Code 120."

The train itself was much less impressive than the station. It wasn't classic or charming, it was just old and outdated. We managed to find three seats and sat down.

It was then that I really started to think about the mission we were going to pull off. We were meeting Weiss for real, if it was her. We still had to get a forged passport, and there were a million things that could go wrong with that. If Weiss was even here.

I forced back the nervousness and recalled something that Commander Shepard said.

_Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up._

* * *

_**Katya**_

We stood below and to the side of the Independency Column, waiting. Far above us stood the statue of Mikhail, archangel and patron saint of Kiev. It seemed like it should be significant somehow, like some kind of symbolism of the moment, but I couldn't come up with any connection. Kind of a shame, really.

I will admit, I was nervous. I had no idea if these people were honest or not. What if they were thieves or rapists or murderers or worse, government agents? I wasn't expecting these people to show up right away, if they did at all, and I got more nervous every minute we waited. I felt better with Weiss standing beside me, but it helped less and less every minute.

"So, do you think they're actually going to show up?" Weiss asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I checked my watch. "Is still five minute."

"It's always better to be early," Weiss replied haughtily.

I shrugged. "Perhaps they lost on Metro."

"Amateurs," Weiss scolded.

I scanned the crowds around the square. There were lots of residents going about their daily business, a few officials and police, and several tourists as well. There were at least four groups of two men and one woman I could see, and I couldn't tell their age easily from the distance.

"Do you see people?"

"I see lots of people," Weiss replied rudely. "But not the ones we're looking for, no."

Then one of the tourists turned toward us, pointing his phone camera at us. This guy could be the one we were waiting for, or he could just be taking a picture of the Column.

In retrospect, we probably should have exchanged pictures. Even Sam's profile picture was just a character from Team Fortress 2.

The tourist that took the picture lowered his phone and started walking toward us. Another man about his age, but fatter and unkempt, and a beautiful young woman followed him. I didn't know if they were the right people, so even as they approached to within spitting distance I kept silent.

"So... you must be Katya," the young man began, looking from me to my companion. "And you must be Weiss."

"Then you are Sam," I greeted, more confidently than I felt. "Hello."

_**Sam**_

"Hello, Katya," I replied before turning to Weiss. "And you must be Weiss Schnee."

"We've been waiting a long time to meet you," Isaac said dreamily.

"No need to be dramatic," I chided, then pointed out my friends. "This is Isaac and Sam."

"Are you going to explain yourselves?" Weiss asked icily.

I brought up the video on my phone and handed it to Weiss. "I think it's better if someone else does."

I watched her face as she watched the video. Confused, curious, slightly smiling, angry, somewhat sad. Or something like that. I can read a person fairly well but it's hard to put into words. Beside her, Katya remained stoic and just kind of took it in.

"Dolt," Weiss muttered as she handed my phone back. "That didn't explain anything."

"This really Ruby Rose?" Katya asked.

I nodded. "That's really her, as far as we can tell. She used her Semblance when we first met her, and she demonstrated Crescent Rose too."

"It was really impressive," Isaac added helpfully.

Katya nodded slowly. "How I tell you be honest?"

"You can't," I admitted. "You can look at the evidence and decide for yourself. We can't prove our case conclusively. But given what's happened, is this really that unreasonable?"

"No, suppose not," she replied slowly. "I believe you."

"Great!"

"Why not just bring Ruby here?" Weiss asked.

"We actually wanted to, but we'd have to figure out how to get her across the borders," I replied sheepishly.

"Why not sneak on airplane?" Katya suggested. "Easy with Semblance."

"Airplane?" Weiss asked.

"It's like an airship," Isaac explained. He shrugged. "Sort of."

"As for why, uh, actually, we didn't think of it," I admitted. "Cliff would probably shoot the plan full of holes, though."

"So what is plan now?" Katya asked cheerfully.

"Well, we're going to stay in Kyiv for a few days, then we're going to take the train to Warsaw and fly back to Vancouver."

"Thanks for asking me how I feel about everything," Weiss said passive-aggressively.

"If Weiss is okay with it," I hurriedly added. "You do want to reunite with Ruby, don't you?"

She was silent.

"I know you're a bit disappointed that Weiss has to leave," I said apologetically to Katya.

"No, understand," Katya said. "Want to get with friend Ruby. Kyiv maybe not safe also."

"It's not that bad, is it?" I asked.

"No, but before we leave, soldier- I think Russian- try get Weiss. She kill."

I turned to Weiss. "Wait, you _actually_ killed Russian soldiers?"

"Yes, I did," Weiss admitted. "They, uh, exploded."

"Holy shit."

"No, it makes sense, Earth humans are a lot weaker than Remnant humans," Isaac explained.

"I have one question," Weiss interrupted. "If you couldn't get Ruby across the border, how are you going to sneak me through?"

* * *

_**Weiss Schnee**_

"Well, this seems safe," I muttered quietly as a shifty looking man sat down across from us on the park table. We were near the edge of the park, and the sun was setting behind us. The bench was cold, rusty, and uncomfortable.

"It be fine," Katya reassured me. She turned to Sam and whispered not quietly enough, "This insane."

"Remember, this is Earth," Sam added. "If it comes to it, you're not going to have trouble with anyone here."

The man cleared his throat before saying something long and rough in Ukrainian or Russian. I couldn't tell the difference.

"I... don't speak the language," I told him.

"Speak English, though?" he asked.

"She does," Sam answered for me. So that's what they called Valic here.

"That good," the man said. "English, universe. Get into any country English."

He paused. "Where are manners? I Paviel. I get document. Hello."

I'll be honest, his terrible Valic was not inspiring a lot of confidence. But according to Sam, this guy was the best there was. According to his friend. According to a rumour mill.

"So, what is name?"

"That is German name, but you not sound German."

"I'm not." I still didn't know what a German was, other than something about a war and a general distrust. I guess German-land was another kingdom. They sure had a lot on Earth.

He nodded, thinking. "You know... I not ask normally... čamu vam treba-"

"Why you, uh, need," Katya filled in. She asked Paviel, "Vy bielaruski?"

"Tak," Paviel replied proudly. "Tym ne mensh, my obydva kazhuchy po - ukrayinsʹky."

They kept exchanging phrases a few times before breaking out laughing. I asked, "What's so funny?"

"We are both in place that speak Ukrainian, and we try speak Ukrainian," Katya explained. "But I tell he Belarus, and he say, I from East or Russia. So... we both not speak language. And now English."

"Yes, interest, but I was asking, not ask normally, but why need passport?" Paviel asked again, barely comprehensibly. "You look, sound from Europe Union or Americas."

"It's a long story, and probably not one you want to hear," Sam told him. _Probably not one you'd believe, either._

"Then I not pry," Paviel replied. He explained, "Okay, it work this way. You give information, I take away. Set up meet, two days later. I give passport. Half now, half later. Understand?"

"Yes, I understand," I replied.

"Okay, first, most important question," Paviel began, tone businesslike but casual at the same time... or maybe that was angry in this culture. "What country?"

"Canada if possible," Sam answered immediately. "If not, a country with visa-free access to Canada. Maybe America or Britain."

"Canada..." Paviel considered it for a moment. "May be more expensive, but can do."

"Great!"

"You want stamps return?" Paviel asked.

Sam thought about it for a moment before answering, "Yes."

"Okay, how you go? May be important."

Sam replied to that question very quickly. "Train to Warsaw, fly out of Chopin. Stopover in... probably Frankfurt."

"Yes, then name," Paviel continued, pulling a sheet of paper and a pen out of his bag. "Can change if want."

"You should keep one of your names," Sam suggested. "Weiss is a German surname, so you should probably use that as your last name if that's what you want."

"Yes," Paviel agreed.

"Okay... how about Anna Weiss?" I replied more confidently than I felt. Choosing a name wasn't something to be done lightly. I might end up stuck with it for a long time.

"That good," Paviel replied. "I not speak language well, but good see name, and sound real."

"Thanks?" I half-replied.

"Birthdate... you are late teens, easier if... nineteen Canada, and look good enough, so you born nineteen ninety-five or nineteen ninety-six, month... You have favorite month?"

I shrugged. They probably don't even use the same months here. "Some time in winter, maybe."

"Okay. Day not matter?"

"No, it doesn't matter."

"Good. You are from large city?"

"Uh, sure." What counted as large? We didn't have consistent definitions among the Kingdoms, so it probably didn't mean anything here.

"Okay, Toronto popular city. Okay?"

"Sure," I replied, glancing at Sam, who nodded.

"I think that is all." He handed us the form. "Check correct."

I quickly read it over. For a criminal outfit, the form was actually surprisingly complete and neatly filled in. It all looked correct, so I handed it back. "Looks fine."

"Good. Now, must take picture."

That was fairly simple, but fairly ingenious. He handed Sam a piece of cardboard to hold behind my head, then told me exactly how to pose. Look ahead, chin up but not too much, done. A perfect passport photo.

"Okay, so how much is this going to cost?" Sam asked, handing the card back over.

Paviel put away his camera. "I have good feeling, so, say, fifteen hundred."

"US Dollars okay?"

"Yes, is good."

Probably more casually than he wanted to, Sam handed over eight green sheets of paper- money, I suppose.

"Thank you," Paviel replied, standing up and handing him a business card. "Call number tomorrow evening for instruction."

"See you later, friends!" he added loudly before waving and walking off into the approaching night.

"Well... that was fucking scary."

* * *

Happy1K1nob1: Nope and nope, but I think at least a few people have figured it out now. Here's a hint: it's been on the news quite a bit lately. Also, the end of this story is a long ways off. This is the second act of the first part, and there are three parts planned.

linkthetoaoftime: She will not appear in the next three acts. After that... maybe.

Guest762: Wait and see...

bhark3: Stolen Flame will be... interesting for sure.


	19. Leave It Behind

Yes, I know there should be parts between the last chapter and this one. I might cover some of it in Asides. And I totally didn't cut any sections for time or anything like that. I would never do that.

Airline meals have improved a LOT in recent years, although it still depends on the airline. From what I've heard, Lufthansa isn't too bad. Air Canada... not so much. As for the Italian dressing, well, they have names with no meaningful etymology, why not food with no meaningful etymology?

This chapter is all Weiss. It just felt right for some reason, and I think it turned out well.

* * *

_**19: Leave It Behind**_

_**Weiss Schnee**_

Leaving Kiev had been a solemn affair. Katya was the closest thing I had to a friend in this world (Ruby excepted, if she was actually here), and I felt terrible leaving her behind, both for myself and for her. We had a connection that few could share. And even after spending two days with them, I was extremely nervous about travelling with Sam, Jen, and Isaac on another planet, illegally.

Not that I let it show, of course. I exuded confidence when I stepped aboard the train.

The train was old, dirty, and smelly, but at least we were going somewhere. However, the ride had been far from relaxing. Sam and Jen had drilled me relentlessly on being Anna Weiss, Canadian. My background, knowledge about the world, my "legend" as Isaac had once called it. I only got more nervous when we reached the border and the customs agents came aboard.

Since they weren't lying about anything, Sam, Isaac, and Jen had no problems getting through customs. I was careful to observe the customs officer as it happened.

The customs officer was professional and polite, which was good for him and his country and potentially very bad for me. He seemed to speak excellent I would have to keep my level, if slightly nervous as any person would be, but controlled to not give away any hint that I was lying. There were other indicators, too, that I would have to suppress.

When it was my turn, I handed him my passport, which he immediately opened and began to inspect. "Your name?"

"Anna Weiss."

He nodded and continued examining the passport. Casually, he asked, "You are German? Do you speak?"

"No, my family hasn't been fluent in generations," I replied, feigning a slight sadness.

The officer nodded and asked after flipping through several pages, "Ah, so you have been before. You know about Schengen Zone, correct?"

"Yes," I replied confidently.

"What is purpose of your visit?"

"I'm going home, travelling through the EU."

"Okay. How are you doing so?"

"Flying out of Warsaw to Frankfurt, Germany, then to Vancouver," I replied.

"Hmm, it says you are from Toronto. Did you move?" the customs officer asked with curiosity that may or may not have been feigned.

"Yes, about two and half years ago," I replied. _Two and a half_ was basically drilled into my brain by that point.

"Ah, I understand," he replied, then asked. "Do you have tickets?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Please show."

I opened my purse and extracted the printed confirmation pages, handing them over to the officer.

He scrutinized them for a few seconds before handing them back. "Okay. Anything to declare?"

"No." Hopefully, no one would think anything of the disassembled pieces of Myrtenaster scattered throughout our luggage.

The officer stamped my passport and handed it back, smiling. "Thank you. Welcome to EU and welcome to Poland. Enjoy stay in Varshava, yes?"

"I will, thank you," I replied politely, taking my passport back as he moved on to the next person.

* * *

I will admit that I boarded the airliner with some trepidation, although I was careful not to show it. The machine looked vaguely similar to a tiltjet, but was larger than even the largest tiltjets, approaching the size of a small airship. Unlike the Dust-powered aircraft of Remnant, this one burned chemical fuel in turbines to produce thrust, and used primarily airflow over the wings to stay airborn. Isaac had pointed out, irritatingly correctly, that it was probably safer than a dust-based tiltjet, but it was unfamiliar and thus disconcerting.

I had seat 19F, a window seat near the middle of the plane. Jen would be right beside me in 19E, and Sam had 19D, with Isaac stuck two rows back with an aisle seat. The cabin was well lit, but hot and cramped, with the seats narrow and squished together. I hadn't realized that there were large bins above the seats to put luggage in. I will admit that it was efficient, but did nothing for comfort. At least they were trying to make it _look_ comfortable with the design.

In other words, it was terrible compared to even the worst airship, and worse than most tiltjets. Fortunately, airplanes were much faster than airships and marginally faster than tiltjets.

I followed the crowd of people and made my way across into the window seat. The seat was thin and I'm sure the covering was synthetic, but it wasn't too uncomfortable. It wouldn't be enjoyable for a long flight, but apparently it would only be an hour or two for us. I was... not as tall as some, so there was plenty of legroom for me. In front of me was a fold-down tray table and a pocket full of promotional materials. I have to admit, the table was kind of ingenious, although it was probably as awful as the rest of the cabin.

"It'll be fine," Jen reassured me as she sat down casually beside me, buckling her seatbelt.

I followed her lead, buckling my own. It was pretty similar to systems we had on vehicles on Remnant, so it wasn't too hard to do, but the fact that we needed seatbelts didn't do anything to calm my nerves.

"Relax, Weiss," Jen repeated, sensing my discomfort.

"I'm fine."

"It's your first time," Jen reminded me.

"No it isn't," I replied quickly. "I flew here, remember?"

"You're good," Jen complimented.

"Of course I am," I insisted. "I have to be."

That shut her up, though I did regret it somewhat.

"Welcome to Lufthansa Flight 1351," a female voice announced over the speakers. "At this time we ask that your seatbelt be fastened and tray table be in the up and locked position. Carry-on baggage should be stored in overhead compartments or below you under the seat."

Sam chuckled quietly, and I have no idea why. The announcer repeated the same message in two other languages, which I presumed were German and Polish, though I had no idea which was which. Then she continued onto the next part.

"If you are seated next to an emergency exit, please carefully read the special instructions on the card in the pocket in front of you. In the event of an emergency, please assume the bracing position. Life vests are located under your seat and can be inflated by pulling on the red cord, although this should be done outside of, not in, the aircraft. If evacuation is deemed necessary, floor-level lighting will guide you to the nearest exit. In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will drop down in front of you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth with the elastic strap around the back of your neck and breathe normally."

Well, that's just about the opposite of reassuring. I picked up the card and read it. The "bracing position" looked less like a bracing position and more like a submission position. If I was reading the card correctly, in the event of a decompression I had ten seconds to get the oxygen mask on before I died- well, maybe it would be longer for me.

"Don't worry, plane crashes are rare," Jen said, not reassuring me one bit.

"We remind you that this is a non-smoking flight, with smoking prohibited on all areas of the aircraft, including the lavatories. Electronic devices may be used on this flight when the seat belt sign is off, or when permitted by your crew. All receiving and transmitting devices must have said functions disabled, as they may interfere with the functioning of navigation and communication equipment."

Okay, if someone's scroll could take down an airplane, why were they still using them? And why no smoking? I mean, smoking is disgusting and bad for your health, but I fail to see why it would be bad on an airplane. I guess it would bother people in close quarters?

"It's bullshit, everything important is isolated and protected," Jen whispered. Okay, that was _somewhat_ more reassuring.

"This and other safety information may be found in an information card in the seat pocket in front of you along with a menu for our inflight cafe. Thank you for choosing Lufthansa. Please have a pleasant flight. Remember, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask any of our crew members."

Then again in German and Polish. Then... I guess that was it. The flight attendants- most of them were women- walked around, checking to make sure all the bins were closed properly and everyone was strapped in.

"Cabin crew, prepare for take off," a different, accented male voice said. Seconds later, there was a jolt and the plane began to roll. I realized at that point that the whine I had heard since I boarded the airplane was its engines, and that it was now louder.

At least it sounded kind of like a Dust-powered aircraft.

The aircraft turned and came to a near stop, waiting for about a minute. Then it began to accelerate dramatically, pushing me back gently into the seat. The engine whine had intensified, and it was quite loud now.

"This is my favourite part!" Jen whispered loudly.

I looked out the window. The thing that we were on- the runway- was zipping away below us, the features of the airport racing by. Alarmingly, the wings were deforming, with the flap things at the back bouncing up and down.

Then there was another little jolt and we began to rise. We were still speeding up, with the engines still at high power, and the airport was disappearing behind.

The shape of the wing began changing, with the flap things retracting into the wing. We stayed at an angle for a while before the aircraft levelled out and the pilot throttled back on the engines.

I felt a bump on my shoulder and turned.

"Admit it, you enjoyed it," Jen teased, grinning widely and reminding me of... of someone else.

* * *

The flight from Warsaw to Frankfurt hadn't been too bad, because it was just under two hours long. They had only served snacks- which were awful, but they were just snacks- and it hadn't been long enough to become uncomfortable.

Frankfurt to Vancouver was another matter. This flight would be nearly ten hours long. I had tried watching a movie on the in flight entertainment system, but gave up after about ten minutes. I guess it would make sense to people from Earth but it didn't make any sense to me. I was actually glad I wasn't that tall, because within two minutes of the flight taking off the man in front of me had reclined his seat all the way back. I was bored and I was uncomfortable and it was horrible.

I decided right away that I hated airplanes and I would be glad when it was all over.

And then there was dinner. I was really glad I had eaten at Frankfurt, even if it was just a few cookies that reminded me of Ruby.

I surveyed the items laid out in front of me. A bun in plastic that was probably stale, some unidentified entree in a small plastic tray covered in orange foil, a tiny salad in plastic package, and a small plastic cup full of some bubbly brown liquid called Coke. A packet of Italian dressing sat beside a little portion pack labelled _butter_.

"What is this?" I blurted out as soon as the flight attendant had left. This was without a doubt the _worst_ dinner service I had ever seen! It was obvious that this would be awful even to an average peasant.

"It's an airline meal," Jen replied matter-of-factly, tearing the foil off of what I assumed was the main course.

"Why is it like this tiny unappetizing thing in this little tray?" I stammered, poking at the tray with my finger.

"Hey, enjoy it, breakfast is usually worse," Sam pointed out, leaning forward as much as his tray table would allow. "What, were you expecting gourmet china service or something?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." I sighed and tore the foil off the entree. It was some kind of beef, vegetables, and rice in sauce. Reluctantly, I unwrapped the (plastic!) fork and carefully placed a bite into my mouth.

It was... actually not too bad. I mean, it wasn't _good_, but I could eat it. It was at least better than what I had eaten in Donetsk. I mentally shuddered at the thought.

I sipped a small amount of Coke to wash it down and was surprised by the taste. It tasted like... Schnee Cola. Not as good, of course- it wasn't sweet enough- but it was palatable.

I tried the bread next, tearing open the plastic package and removing the top from the butter portion pack before unceremoniously dipping the end of the roll in the soft butter and chewing the end off. It was a grossly improper way to eat it, but the bread itself wasn't _too_ terrible.

The salad was still sitting there, so I opened it, tore open the dressing, and poured it over the leafy greens. I drove my fork through a few of the leaves and placed it in my mouth. The lettuce clearly wasn't fresh, but the Italian dressing actually tasted like Italian. I guess it was the same here, or maybe I just got lucky and this was actually considered barely Italian here.

"You're hungry, aren't you?" Jen commented lightly.

"What makes you say that?" I snapped. I was... well, I wasn't _that_ hungry!

"Well, it's an airline meal, and you're, well, you," she replied. "And you're just devouring that meal."

"Like you said, it's a terrible airline meal," I retorted. "It's not worthy of any dignity."

She went back to her meal and I went back to mine. Before long, we had both finished our meals and the flight attendant had taken the now mostly empty trays back. The meal had been... satisfying enough. I mean, it was still awful, but it was edible and I felt reasonably full and not grossed out after, so I guess it was okay.

I still wasn't looking forward to breakfast, though.

* * *

"Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked Sam as we neared the front of the line in customs and immigration. I had been very glad to step off the plane after that hot, uncomfortable, non-tasty, exhausting flight, and less glad to wait in line to be interrogated by a machine.

He shrugged and exited the line, heading to one of the automated passport machines. A few seconds later, one of the passport officials waved me forward, and I stepped in front of one of the foreboding grey machines.

It prompted me to select a language. Don't try to look for Valic. Choose English. _You can do this, Weiss._

Then it asked me to insert my passport in the kiosk document reader. I opened my passport to the data page and dropped it face down.

The machine beeped angrily at me, and I nearly had a panic attack before I realized that it was just asking me to insert the document the other direction. _Calm down, Weiss._

It accepted the passport the second time, and I quickly removed it as soon as it was finished, as if that would make some kind of difference. The machine asked me for my E311 card next. That was the form I filled out on the airplane. That had been _fun_. I inserted the card into the slot, and the kiosk took a moment to read it before spitting it back out.

The machine advised me to "please wait", making unpleasant noises for half a minute before finally producing a printed receipt. I took it and headed to the exit.

A serious-looking customs officer barred my path. He held out his hand. "Your passport and customs form and receipt, please."

I handed him the necessary documents, careful to keep my movements relaxed and my face neutral.

He inspected them, and asked, "You've been to Ukraine? How was it?"

"It was... less than pleasant," I replied, perhaps too quickly. I added, "Not a good time to visit."

"Hmm, yeah, with everything that's been happening... I'm sorry to hear that," the man said politely, closing my passport and handing it back to me along with the other forms. "Welcome back to Canada, Miss Weiss."

I smiled and took the card back, walking into the next area. It was a much more open space dominated by a row of those carousel things... baggage claims.

"Number twenty-five," Sam said, striding up beside me. "Bags are already coming in. They've actually got their shit together today."

Isaac and Jen had already retrieved their bags, and Sam's as well. I immediately recognized my (indefinitely borrowed) worn-out rolling thing and deftly pulled it off the belt with one hand. It took two attempts to get the handle out.

We'd already agreed that we would exit separately and meet up again outside in the meeting area, supposedly to reduce risk. I had my doubts, but nevertheless headed immediately to the exit, not waiting for the others to catch up.

"Your declarations card, please," another customs officer, this one a woman, requested. I handed her the card, which the inspected before waving me through. "Welcome home."

I muttered a thank you that I didn't really feel the need to give and stepped through the umpteenth security checkpoint into freedom. I could feel the tension fizzle away, replaced with a kind of nervousness and trepidation.

Somehow, Sam, Jen, and Isaac had made it out ahead of me, and by the time I spotted them they were already with another two. One was another nerdy-looking guy with a messy beard and hair, and the other was much cleaner and taller. So, this must be the others. But where was Ruby-

"Hi Weiss!" a red blur shouted before crashing into me and pulling me into an incredibly tight hug.

"Urp... hi... Ruby... squishing... me!"

* * *

bhark3: We're almost halfway there. Each character has a ten-chapter arc, and we're almost through the first two already.

linkthetoaoftime: Refer to some of the other responses, I've dropped some very big hints.

AnonymousReading: It's a possibility, depending on where the conflict areas are when I get to that point.

Happy1K1nob1: You're missing out. There's lots of interesting and important stuff going on in the world right now. It's been a very active year for news.

kapow: Next chapter is... well, it was this one, but the one after this is a wrap-up to the Ice Princess arc.

Courtney O'brien: It's a possibility much later, but the first arc is just RWBY.

Guest: I've been placing some of the characters based on what's been in the news, but not all of them. As for being nonhuman, it'll be significant to the next arc.

One of the things I really wanted to do in this fic is write realistic OCs. Which means yes, they're flawed, and no, they can't deal with this situation. Ask yourself, honestly, could you do it? If your answer is yes, all the power to you. But I know my answer is a definite no. Getting someone out of Ukraine? I wouldn't know where to start, and I'd be very afraid every step of the way. These are regular people, not a band of mighty heroes. That doesn't mean they won't adapt and overcome, but it does mean they're going to have a hell of a time doing it.

15delgizzij: You gave me a really good idea for Urban Panther, actually.


	20. Halfway Home

So... wrapping up Ice Princess with a final epilogue. To be honest, Ice Princess really could have gone better. I didn't have a clear plan, and it took forever to really pull together. I do feel that despite rushing the last few chapters out the door, it really did come together near the end.

Yes, I'm sinking White Rose. This is not a ship fic. I mean, it'll have plenty of ships in it, but shipping is not what it's about. I do enjoy well-written ship fics, but a lot of the pairings I find implausible, especially when combined, so that's why you won't see them here.

And yes, Weiss Really Reacts will be a thing (sort of) soon enough. If you haven't checked the Asides, do so now, because there will more showing up this week. Tentative plan is to release the first part of Act 3 (Urban Panther) next Monday.

* * *

**20: Halfway Home**

Weiss Schnee, huntress in training and heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, had landed in a situation she was completely unprepared for.

She had learned a lot about Earth and how different it was very quickly. Unlike some others, she could appreciate the fact that although it looked very similar on the surface, Earth was very different from Remnant. She had, of course, committed as much as possible to memory with perfect clarity.

The first thing Weiss had learned was why defeating the soldiers was so easy and why people on Earth seemed to be so easily injured. Technically, Ruby had been the one to tell her, unceremoniously blurting out that they had no Aura. When she had asked for clarification, Isaac confirmed it. Earth humans- Terrans- lacked the protection of Aura, had no Semblances, and were significantly weaker than Remnant humans. However, she didn't believe they were soulless monsters. Only the Grimm were soulless monsters, and she couldn't feel their darkness here.

There were no Grimm on Earth. What Katya had said was true. No Grimm and no Hunters to deal with them. It seemed like the world would be much more peaceful, and it certainly seemed to be that way. Earth had a massive population, over seven billion people, scattered in cities spreading across the continents. There were nearly two hundred countries- Cliff pointed out that calling them kingdoms was improper, since they had widely differing forms of government- all existing as independent yet interdependent entities.

But Earth was far from a peaceful world. She suspected that already, getting the feeling that there was bad blood much older than the rebellion in Novorossiya. It wasn't the only war going on in the world, either. Extremism, nationalism, distribution of power- all the forces that caused conflict among humans on Remnant were in play on Earth. Only there was no threat of Grimm invasion to keep that conflict in check, and they had some shockingly destructive wars. In the last century alone, there two world wars and a great many regional conflicts with global implications.

Surprisingly, the humans had invented their own way to make wars too costly, at least among the most powerful nations. Nuclear weapons. Ruby saw them only as very big bombs, but she knew immediately that there was more to it than that. No one would pick a fight with an opponent that could wipe out your cities within an hour, and no one did. For the past half century, a threat of annihilation hung over Earth, different yet similar to that of Remnant. It didn't stop smaller regional conflicts from erupting- they called it low-intensity warfare, a mockery of a term if there was one. Of course, both her and Ruby had immediately postulated that nuclear weapons could be an easy answer to the Grimm problem, which was an irony that she grasped and Ruby didn't.

All in all, Weiss found the power dynamics of Earth fascinatingly complex.

Though it had been stated to her several times, it wasn't until Cliff finally explained it that Weiss understood that there was really no Dust on Earth. They built their technology in vaguely similar ways, using different materials and sometimes different principles. They burnt fossil fuels- fossil fuels!- for energy, something which Ben had admitted was terrible. One of the latest ideas was to split the atom- which produced nuclear reactors and the nuclear bomb- or to combine atoms, which was nuclear fusion, so far only used in bombs. It was something that Ruby found more fascinating than Weiss did.

What Weiss did find fascinating was that the humans of Earth had been to space, even landing on their moon. The heavens were largely mystical on Remnant, with limited scientific study, and certainly they had never strapped some poor sod to a giant bomb and blasted them into space! Unsurprisingly, the push into space was also a product of Earth's complex political climate, a rivalry between superpowers. Though crude, Earth's methods worked, and though space exploration was still in its infancy, the effects of the space program were seen indirectly around the globe.

Satellite communication was used constantly on Earth with no thought given to its existence. It was a system far, far more efficient than the massive CCT transmitters employed on Remnant, where the alternative of long cables was not an option. Fast, high-bandwidth communications eventually lead to the Internet. Weiss immediately understood the potential of such a system and very quickly understood the potential for misuse of such a system. It had taken a lot of persuasion to prevent the "Weiss Really Reacts" video from being posted online.

Living in Ben and Jen's apartment was uncomfortable, but tolerable. It was cramped, and the thin mattress on the floor was uncomfortably jammed between Ruby's couch and the TV stand. Ben had mentioned that if any more of them showed up, they'd have to find new accommodations. Food on Earth was unsatisfying, and she found herself breaking her dietary rules just to get enough energy. At least there was plenty of entertainment, both intentional and unintentional, to whittle away their idle days.

Ruby was the one thing she had left from her life before. They shared the horrible feelings of being lost on another world. It was immensely reassuring to be with her team leader, and she was sure the feeling was mutual. Weiss would never admit that she once hated the energetic crimsonette, and would never admit that she had become like a little sister to her.

It still bothered Weiss that she didn't know what happened, how she and Ruby had ended up here, if it was the same event or a different event. Neither remembered what had happened, except that there might have been a bright flash, it was scary, and they had lost about a week's worth of memories along with it. They had arrived two weeks apart, so it seemed that it was two different events, but nobody had any idea how interdimensional travel actually worked.

She held out hope that they would find the rest of the team and find a way home. Ruby was enthusiastic about meeting Blake and Yang again (and sure that they would show up in that order). Weiss was more hesitant, but tried to stay positive. After all, they had both made it to Earth and found each other. So it wasn't that far out there.

Weiss would be lying if she said she liked living on Earth. But she slowly got used to it, and could live with it for the time being.

* * *

**Act 3 Teaser**

The girl awoke slowly, then bolted up suddenly when she realized where she was.

Or where she wasn't. The last place she remembered being was... she didn't remember. But this wasn't it. She was in an alley, and she could tell by the scents and the sounds that she was in the city. Maybe Vale?

That hope was dashed as soon as she stepped out of the alley. Mid-sized buildings jutted up along a wide street packed with people. That wasn't what got her attention, though. The buildings were covered in signs, brightly coloured and labelled in a mix of Valic and a language she had never seen before.

"Uh, excuse me, where am I?" she asked the first reasonably friendly looking person she saw, a young man with dark hair and a bright blue jacket.

The man spread his arms and exclaimed, "Akihabara! Tokyo!"

She understood that they were names, but didn't recognize them at all. They sounded strange, foreign, and she'd never heard them before. Before she could ask for clarification, the man had moved on. It was hardly a good way to get information anyway.

The girl looked around, yellow irises scanning the streets. She saw several odd sights through the masses of people. Young women- girls really- dressed as maids, in front of a "maid cafe". A potato store that seemed to also sell video games. A few people that looked like huntsmen and huntresses. And... Faunus girls?

Were they- no, they couldn't be. The ears were fake, they looked fake. But then one of them twitched. She didn't know of anyone who wore fake cat ears that twitched, in public. So, with cautious curiosity, she approached them, blending in with the column crossing the street.

There were three of them, conversing about something in the same language everyone else used that she did not recognize. One of them noticed her approaching, pointed, and said something that she couldn't understand.

She blinked and replied. "I'm sorry, I don't speak-"

The other girl apologized, "Oh, sorry! You're a tourist? What do you think of Akihabara?"

"It's interesting," she allowed, though she hadn't been in this place long enough to make heads or tails of it. She motioned to her own bow. "Are you, uh-"

"We are kitty girls!" She thought that was an unusually cheerful admission. Nevertheless, it made her more comfortable in an instant.

"I'm Blake. Blake Belladonna."


	21. We Know That Cat Girl

Act 3 (Urban Panther) has officially begun!

A few notes. Urban Panther will have the same number of chapters as the last two acts, but it will be shorter overall. My Japanglish is also not very good, especially since Russian English has been drilled into my head quite a bit from the last act.

This is definitely lighter, fluffier, and a little bit sillier than the last act. Call it a little bit of a breather before Stolen Flame. Writing Blake is harder than Weiss but easier than Ruby, I think.

Also, this chapter is technically chronologically out of order. See if you can figure out why.

* * *

_**21: We Know That Cat Girl**_

_**Isaac**_

"Hey guys, I think you should see this," I called from behind my laptop.

"Why, what is it?" Sam asked from the living room floor.

I didn't want to spoil it without showing them first, so I just said, "Just come look. And Ruby and Weiss should see it too."

"Come on, Weiss!" Ruby said to her friend.

"Ugh, fine," I heard the ice heiress respond.

"Why are you looking through that otaku shit?" Sam asked from behind me.

"I was looking for Blake," I replied automatically. I wasn't lying, not technically. I was looking for Blake, but I did find of this stuff really neat, which is kind of embarrassing.

"So, did you find her?" Ruby asked excitedly.

"Maybe." I clicked the play button.

"Why does the video always have to be so crap?" Cliff complained immediately. While the video was 240p and vertical, probably taken by an idiot with a cellphone, it really wasn't that bad. Some people just had high standards.

"Just watch the video," Sam snapped.

The video was fairly simple and fairly short. It showed a bunch of girls dressed as cats in what looked like a Japanese apartment. What caught our attention was the girl in black and white removing a black bow from her head.

Ruby, of course, immediately blurted out, "Was that Blake?"

"I think so, what do you guys think?" I scrolled the video back and played the segment again. "It could just be a really good cosplay."

"I think it looks like Blake," Ruby confirmed.

"I can't be sure, but yes, that looks like Blake," Weiss confirmed.

"So, it's Blake?" Sam asked.

Weiss shrugged. "We should probably confirm it."

"But you think it is."

"Yeah!" Ruby shouted.

Sam slammed his hands on the desk. "Fucking finally, we've found Blake!"

* * *

_**Blake Belladonna**_

"So, what's going on?" I asked again.

After meeting the three faunus, they had enthusiastically said something about a friend that looked like me and invited me to come with them. With no idea about where I was or what was going on, I reluctantly followed.

Though they looked and acted friendly, I kept my guard up. Appearing harmless was a difficult skill to master, but a very useful one to have. I had no idea who these girls were, except that they seemed to be faunus and acted like schoolgirls.

I carefully observed my surroundings as I followed them through the streets. The signs were mostly in a language I didn't recognize, but there was some Valic mixed in. I noticed a lot of stores selling electronics or _Anime_ or _Manga_ merchandise (whatever that was), and a few street signs with foreign sounding names. The place was packed with people, more people than I had seen in one spot before. It was unnerving.

Soon the people thinned out and the brightly coloured stores gave way to dirtier, duller ones. The buildings became less glamourous and commercial- these were probably dwellings. One of the girls I was with gestured excitedly to one of the buildings. We walking into a small lobby, rode a tiny elevator, and another cat faunus waved us into a cramped apartment.

This was getting creepy. I hoped they weren't planning something, or worse, in with the White Fang.

Inside was a gathering of cat faunus. All cats. There were at least a dozen of them in the room. All spoke the same unrecognizable language, though some of them greeted me in broken Valic. I noticed one of them was dressed almost identically to me. She winked at me.

Somehow, it all felt off. I was far too disoriented to place it at the time, but it just didn't feel right. Not wrong as in a "it's going to go horribly wrong" kind of way, just... like something was missing. Like something didn't fit.

Then Yuko wanted to video the gathering. I didn't understand why. Didn't they realize they were opening themselves to persecution? I argued it, but I don't think she understood what I said, and I didn't understand what she said. I went along with it anyway, probably against my better judgement.

I was tired, I was confused. It was when we all made mistakes, and when we could least afford it.

"What is this?" I repeated as Yuko packed her camera- a bulky, crude-looking thing that was probably pretty old- into her bag.

"What is this?" she echoed, gesturing around. "Oh... oh! Gathering of Nekko- cat girl!"

"I understand who you are, but why are you gathering?" I repeated. I had asked this question before and gotten a nonsensical answer. Maybe this time it wouldn't get lost in translation.

One of the other girls, who had black ears, whispered something in her ear- her human ear. Yuko giggled. "Oh, it is just fun!"

I guess I had to accept that as the best answer I was going to get. I decided that I at least wanted to know about the girl dressed like me. "And why is... huh, where did she go?"

"She?"

"There was a girl here that was dressed like me," I said, looking around and seeing no trace of her.

"Oh, she is Blake Belladonna from RWBY. She has to go."

"_I'm_ Blake Belladonna." Was that really so hard a concept to grasp?

I hadn't accidentally created a shadow clone in my confusion, had I? No. Unlike some people, I had better control over my Semblance than that.

"She is also. Akemi is name of her."

That didn't make any sense at all. "But you just claimed she was me."

Yuko laughed and I got the impression that what I was trying to say wasn't getting through to her at all.

"You keep ears hidden under the bow," Yuko said after I went quiet. "Why you do that?"

"I keep them hidden because I don't want the world to know who I really am," I replied carefully. "I want people to know me as a person, not as an animal or a thing. There's a lot of prejudice and hate in the world."

"Then why you wear them?" she asked, confused.

It was an odd choice of phrase, but I guess wherever this was, it was a place where Valic wasn't widely spoken. I knew what she was talking about and I was surprised by how casually she spoke of such a horrible act. Maybe it was more common here- wherever _here_ was.

"I don't think I could stand to lose them. For better or for worse, they're part of me." I wiggled my ears for emphasis.

Before she could reply, I stood up and asked, "Yuko, where are we? Where is this place?"

"Tokyo, close to Akihabara."

"I don't know where that is," I admitted. "Are we in Vale or one of the other kingdoms?"

Yuko laughed at that. "You so funny! This is Japan!"

"Where's Japan?" I asked.

"Here!" The girl energetically strolled up to a large map labelled "The World" attached to a wall. It was definitely not Remnant. There was one large continent labelled "Asia", a smaller one attached to it labelled Africa, a small one labelled Australia, and two joined ones labelled North America and South America. And if I was looking at the smaller labels right, there were at least a hundred regions, all implied to be populated.

None of it made any sense. It had to be some kind of joke. "What _is_ that?"

"It's the world! Earth!" Yuko exclaimed. She pointed to a chain of islands off the coast of the large continent. "This is Japan!"

Then she pointed to parts of North America. "You are from United States? Or you are from Canada?"

"I'm from Vale," I said half-truthfully. The map must have been a joke- it looked nothing like Remnant and Vale wasn't even on it. Where was _here_, really?

How _did_ I get here? It was then that I realized I couldn't remember.

It wasn't a matter of hitting my head and ending up somewhere else, or being drugged. I would have remembered that. But I couldn't remember what happened just before I got here, and I couldn't remember anything concrete from recently. Just feelings and images that fluttered away. I remembered the docks, confronting Torchwick and the White Fang, and I remembered the break at Beacon...

"You so funny!" Yuko repeated, interrupting my thoughts.

I grabbed her gently by the shoulders, my yellow eyes staring intensely into her brown ones. "Yuko, I'm serious. I don't know where I am, how I got here, or what I'm going to do."

She looked concerned before making an exaggerated waving motion and proclaiming, "Oh, if you don't have lodging, why you didn't just say so! You can stay with me! My parents no speak english, but they are okay."

Well, at least I had a place to stay, even if everything else was insane. My hand brushed against the grip of Gambol Shroud. That was one friend I could always rely on.

* * *

_**Sam**_

"Looks like we've got a message back," I announced. Right away, everyone began crowding around my laptop.

"Can we make this quick?" Isaac complained. "I start at eight thirty tomorrow."

"Nobody cares, Isaac," Ben snapped half-jokingly.

"Calm down, guys." I read out the message.

"Yes is Belladonna Blake beautiful. She can look very nice but confused about thing. Us is the Akihabara district of Tokyo. I confuse it, translating to just get lost in your message. Sorry for my confusing English. She can be of course the companions come, Weiss Ruby RWBY area of many things like play of costume. Following are some e-mail."

"Did she use Google Translate?" Cliff muttered.

"Probably," Isaac replied.

"So, what do you think?" I asked.

"What do you think?" Isaac reflected.

"I don't know, it's all butchered," I said. I looked at Cliff. "What do you think?"

He threw his arms into the air. "What the hell, I'm less Japanese than Isaac!"

Isaac grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Dude, you have squinty eyes and your hair is Asian," I told him. "Your mom barely speaks English."

"Fuck off, I'm culturally Canadian," Cliff insisted. "For Christ's sake, I don't even like anime!"

I shrugged. "Okay, whatever, just tell us what you think."

"Without confirming or denying any cultural heritage, I would classify this as a maybe," he evaluated mock-thoughtfully.

"I think we should go and check this out," Isaac said.

"So we should just rush in without a plan or even decent knowledge of the situation?" I said sarcastically.

"Yeah, that's pretty stupid," Cliff agreed.

Isaac shrugged. "It worked last time."

"That's terrible logic," Cliff pointed out.

Isaac was persistent. "It's Japan, not Ukraine. The worst case, we got a trip to Japan, preferably with RT's money."

"You people are idiots," I heard Weiss mutter.

Cliff heard her, too. "Hey! You may be a badass huntress in a prestigious combat academy, but do you know what I'm in? Computer Information Technology. I don't run ops every day."

Um... what? I voiced, "What are you even trying to say?"

Isaac muttered. "Yeah, I mean, what was that?"

"I think he's trying to say you don't know what you're doing," Weiss snorted.

"Do you think they'll actually give us money?" I asked, changing topics before Cliff could respond.

"Ruby can do her puppy dog face on live webcam," Cliff jokingly suggested.

"Which one?" Ruby asked rhetorically. Well, at least, I hope it was rhetorically.

"If not, well, it's not like you guys are poor," Isaac muttered. "Look, we can try to confirm if she's there, but we might not be able to know until

"Can't we ask for a video?" Jen suggested.

"We couldn't tell from the video," I pointed out.

"It was a pretty bad video," Ruby said.

"I think we should check it out in person," Isaac repeated.

I glared at him. "You just want an excuse to go to Japan instead of doing school, don't you?"

He smirked. "Yeah, kinda."

"And you want to spend someone else's money, too, don't you?"

"Yeah. Preferably Monty's, but like I said, you guys have money too."

There was a chorus of objections, some more rude than others, and head shaking.

I sighed. "So, who actually does have money to burn and wants to visit Tokyo?"

We all stared at Ben. Hey, his fault for always bragging.

"Oh, fuck you..."


	22. Operation Catspaw

A bit rushed, and a day late, but it's finally here. Review replies are at the bottom.

Urban Panther is set the week of September 29. Stolen Flame will be set the week of October 13.

* * *

_**2: Operation Catspaw**_

_**Sam**_

_BBinJapan: Yes am in Japan._

"Shouldn't Blake have perfect English?" Cliff asked, peering over my shoulder. I guess he decided this way more exciting than SQL.

"Yeah," I agreed. "But maybe she doesn't know how to use the technology so she's going through someone else."

Cliff made a funny noise. "I dunno, it seems pretty thin. You should probably ask."

_SamDaMan: Are you communicating through someone else?_

_BBinJapan: Yes, I am go through middle person._

That was actually kind of surprising. Damn Cliff and his logic. "Huh. I guess you're right."

_SamDaMan: So you're staying with a bunch of_

"What the hell is a polite term for cat furries?"

"Nekkomaki or Nekkomusume," Isaac called from the living room.

_SamDaMan: Nekko-people._

_BBinJapan: yes, good Group._

_SamDaMan: Doing okay?_

_BBinJapan: yes, is Fine._

"Well, at least she's safe," I muttered. "Probably."

_SamDaMan: You're not the only one here. Ruby and Weiss are waiting here in Canada. We're gonna figure out a way to get everyone together._

_BBinJapan: Okay sounds fun._

Cliff voiced basically the exact thing I was thinking. "Well, that's an odd choice of phrase."

"Yeah, no shit," I agreed. "Damn English to Japanese to English conversion."

_SamDaMan: Do you think we could meet in Tokyo later this week?_

I waited anxiously for a response.

_BBinJapan: okay I see you soon :)_

"That's it?" Cliff asked.

I nodded. "That's it."

"Well, this is going to be a lot easier than last time." He paused. "I hope I didn't just jinx it."

* * *

_**Blake Belladonna**_

I couldn't sleep.

It wasn't the fact that I was in a strange bed in a stranger's house. I had done that far too many times to count, and far too many times for it to worry me in the slightest. There was a time where I would sleep wherever I could; in public, in a secluded spot, in a friend's home, in a stranger's home. It wasn't a life I wanted to go back to, but it wasn't one I could forget.

Even then, I knew where I was, how I got there, where I was going to go. The answers to those questions were often unpleasant, but I had the answers. I was in control- or at least as in control as I could be, given the circumstances.

But now, I had no idea. I had so many questions.

What was that language they were speaking? Why had I never heard it before?

Where was this place, really? Was this Japan? Why did she think I was from the United States? Was that even a real map?

How did I get here? Why was I here? Why couldn't I remember?

Where was the rest of my team? Did they abandon me on purpose? Were they forced to abandon me? Did I run off on my own?

Who were these Faunus? Why were they gathering? What are they doing?

Was this some kind of joke? An elaborate prank? Was it an insane accident? Or was it something more sinister?

And what was that strange feeling? Everything felt off. The environment, the people, just the atmosphere around me. Maybe it wasn't just one thing. Maybe it was many things. I couldn't place it. Maybe if I had some time to think, but I couldn't focus on anything long enough.

I tossed and turned in the strange, small bed. I thought about leaving, going out to find out more, but what could I learn? Not much on my own. I would try to talk to Yuko again tomorrow.

* * *

_**Sam**_

"So, we're going to Japan," I announced theatrically. Probably unnecessary, but whatever.

"Not gonna lie, this is gonna be a vacation after Donetsk," Cliff said.

"Let's get the hard part out of the way first," Ben suggested.

"Yeah. Money."

Isaac replied, "We can get more money from them hopefully."

I raised an eyebrow. "Hopefully?"

"Hopefully."

"Let's face it, we're gonna be in debt up to our asses by the end of this," Ben said cynically.

"Yeah, especially you," Cliff remarked. "And you, Sam."

"Why us?" Ben objected.

"Simple. You have money," he replied.

"You do too!"

"Yeah, but I never get money. It's like... immutable money."

"Fine, whatever." As much as I liked to tease him about it, Cliff was being honest. He's had pretty much the same amount of money in the bank for years. Even still, he did invest in the Donetsk mission a bit.

"So, who's going this time?" Isaac asked.

"You want to go, right?"

Isaac nodded.

I turned to Cliff. "Cliff, since you're-"

"Fuck you," he snapped.

"But you do want to go to Akihabara, don't you?"

"Fuck you," he agreed.

"And Ben's financing it... so you three."

"Not coming?" Ben asked.

"No, we don't have the money to send a huge team, we don't need to send a huge team, and I have school to catch up on."

"Fair enough," he replied.

"Timetable?" Cliff asked.

I considered it for a moment. Faster is better. "We take the first flight out to Tokyo, then come back on the weekend."

"Okay. Does our grand plan need a name?" Cliff asked.

"It's not a really a big operation like Donetsk, but yeah, for consistency, we should," I answered. "Ruby?"

"Operation Kitty... Operation Cat, uh..." She twiddled her thumbs before exclaiming, "Operation Catspaw!"

"Catspaw?" Weiss questioned.

I shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

* * *

Review replies, because I missed two chapters already.

_chaosrin_: We'll see what happens when we get that far.

_linkthetoaoftime_: There's a bit of a language barrier in play. Even if they understand correctly what Blake is saying, they would be more inclined to dismiss it as misunderstanding. Urban Panther will be shorter and less eventful, but Stolen Flame will be much more intense. I don't know the Rooster Teeth crew well enough to write them, so we'll probably never see them as anything but a Voice With An Internet Connection.

_onerustybucket_: Not all of the money is Ben's, but a lot of it is, yeah. The money situation is plot-significant but it will be resolved in the story. As for Yang, I haven't decided the exact location. It was originally going to be Aleppo or Raqqa, but Kobane might be a better choice.

_Tatopatato_: There's been a lot going on in the world lately, and I wanted to tie in to that, so I decided to scatter everyone across the globe. And no, Yang is not ending up in Africa. It's much worse.

_AnonymousReading_: It doesn't really require a complex vocabulary. Just use more words.

_HiroNinja_: Check the cover image.


	23. Culture Shock

Another quick chapter. I'm still wired for Russlish and Japanglish is totally different, I know. As for the chapter name, they're actually decided before the chapter is written.

Midterms and projects coming up, so... yeah. Okay, that's a lie, I've been playing Space Engineers instead of writing.

* * *

_**3: Culture Shock**_

_**Cliff**_

I hate flying. I'd say it's because there's something unnatural and unnerving about rocketing through the air at thirty thousand feet, but that's not it. It's being crammed into a tiny ass seat with no legroom for ten fucking hours in a cabin that's full of noisy assholes and about forty fucking degrees. The food- if there's food, because some airlines don't bother anymore- is shit. This was an ANA flight too, so I couldn't even get Shikuwasa Sky Lemonade or whatever the fuck it's called

Needless to say, I never sleep on the plane.

I'd say I'd be happy to get off, which isn't strictly untrue, but airports are horrible too. Long lines, cramped areas, and it's always too hot. Security will grill you, customs will grill you, immigration will grill you. It'll take hours, you're already burnt out, you're now more burnt out. And this is a smooth journey. If you're really lucky that day, someone will fuck up somewhere and you'll have to deal with that too.

I need a Max, but I don't think they have those in Japan. Too bad.

I stepped off the plane with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, trying to focus on the trip ahead and not the nightmare I stepped out of or the nightmare I was stepping into.

The first step was, of course, customs and immigration. Coming from Canada isn't too bad, but they still inspected our passports, asked us some questions, and made us fill in a form. Obviously, the purpose of our trip was "pleasure", not "smuggling a fictional character out of the country." Although this _is_ Japan, so that might actually fly.

After that, we collected our baggage, which was thankfully intact and in one piece. Well, I mean, each piece was in one piece, with nothing obviously broken inside.

I was really glad when we finished with security and all that bullshit and stepped into the weird and wonderful world that is Japan.

* * *

_**Blake Belladonna**_

I woke up late, eight in the morning by the clock on the wall. I got up, used the washroom, and headed down the steep staircase to the second floor. Yuko was already in the kitchen, eating. I noticed that she was wearing a different outfit, probably a school uniform, and that her ears were covered by a hat.

"Parents already at work, so I make breakfast. You want a breakfast?" She motioned to a collection of bread and pastries on the table.

I grabbed a few of the fresher-looking pastries and a slice of buttered toast. The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't very filling. At least it was something. I don't actually remember the last time I ate.

After eating, I asked again. "Where are we?"

"Tokyo!" Yuko answered, like I was supposed to know where that was.

"I don't know where that is," I replied honestly.

"It is the capital of the Japan. Big city, know all over the world."

"I don't know what Japan is."

"How you not know about Japan? Small country, but high influence. Big economic."

Country? Usually people said kingdom, but I guess that was the linguistic convention here. "I only know of four kingdoms... countries. Vale, Vacuo, Mistral, and Atlas."

She shook her head. "No, this cannot be right. Don't know, but, are almost two hundred country."

This was turning into a repeat of last night. I vented my frustration. "Those are the only four I know of. Those are the kingdoms! There can't be close to two hundred! I don't know of any more, and maybe this is a long lost island or something but if it is how did I get here?"

"Maybe you got hurt? Hit on the head and forgot?" Yuko asked, concerned. "I can call the hospital-"

"No, I'm..." I began, but stopped short. Was I fine? I couldn't remember what happened before I got here. Did I get hit on the head? That would explain why I was so disoriented. What happened? "...fine. Thank you."

"Okay." She stood up and moved toward the stairs. "I have school today, but you can stay here, and after I answer more question. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I replied. Looks like I'm going to have to find my own answers.

* * *

_**Ben**_

"Why are we staying here instead of closer to Akihabara?" Isaac asked as we stepped into the hotel lobby.

This place was actually pretty nice. Big ceilings, lots of open space, marble and shiny metal in an old-style European style. It really did feel like a fancy hotel in America or Europe. Except all the staff is asian instead of Mexican.

"Because it's way cheaper," Cliff replied.

"Oh," Isaac remarked. It was nice that he decided to save my money instead of blowing it. Unless he was skimming it off the top or something. Cliff was kind of a scumbag and he would do stuff like that.

I walked to the front desk. "Hi, I'd like to check in."

The woman behind the counter was Japanese and pretty and dressed businesslike in an official looking vest with a Grand Pacific nametag. "Hi, I'd like to check in."

She looked up smiled in a way that was obviously rehearsed. "Name, please?"

"Benjamin Taylor," I replied.

She typed something into the computer in front of her. Sadly, all I could see was the back of the monitor, which was an old piece of shit NEC.

She looked up. "Can I see ID and credit card please?"

"Sure." I pulled out my wallet and removed my driver's license and Scotiabank visa and handed them over.

"Passport?"

I handed that over, too.

She examined them, typing numbers into the computer, then handed them back. "Thank you. One moment please."

In a quick and smooth action she pulled out three keycards and ran them through a writer before slipping them into a pouch and handing them to me. "You have Room 916. Wi-fi password is on the envelope. Do you have any questions?"

"No, thank you." I grabbed my pully bag and led our group toward the elevators.

"Keys?" Cliff asked.

Isaac rolled his eyes. "He'll give you yours later."

"By the way, I call one of the beds," I said casually, pushing the button to call the elevator.

"Shotty the other one," Cliff said much more frantically.

"Damn it," Isaac muttered as we dragged our bags into the now-open elevator.

* * *

Review replies:

linkthetoaoftime: Next chapter is called _A Real Cat Girl_. Draw your own conclusions.

Slen D. Man: Middle East is nominally considered part of Asia. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) straddles both.

Fourze: It's my understanding that people in that part of the world do watch non-dubbed and sometimes non-subbed English-language media. A significant number of Internet users speak a primary language other than English.

Jacob Rickshaw: It must be brutal over there. I will be doing a lot of research to try to get the depiction as accurate as possible.

Courtney O'Brien: No comment on JNPR yet.

Guest: In all fairness, Blake being next is pretty easy to guess; we've got R and W, are we going in the sequence RWBY or are we going to mix it up into RWYB? I'm curious, though- did you predict based on guesswork and intuition, the hints in the cover image, or both? I find Blake easier to write than Ruby, but we don't hear much from her so it's hard to get her speech patterns down. This part of the story will go a little beyond chapter 40, but I'm not going to say anything about where we're going after that. It will get interesting, that's for sure.

Sgt. Sporky: I've heard Catspaw used to mean "A person used by another as a dupe or tool" but not "A hired killer" before. Sorry to disappoint. What does ERT stand for? I kind of wrote this as a reaction to all of the samey OC fics that I keep seeing. To clarify, I'm not against OC fics, but most of them do basically the same thing and it's not very exciting. I'm not going to speculate on RT's resources or some of their personal funds, but I suspect it's a lot more than you think. The lack of description is more due to laziness and lack of time than anything.


	24. A Real Cat Girl

Very short chapter, sorry.

A quick note. I'm assuming that Remnant does not have an equivalent of the internet. Maybe localized networks, possibly even some kingdom-wide services, but nothing fully integrated and massive like the World Wide Web. I'm probably going to discuss this in more depth in-universe.

Also, I know I've been slacking on Asides, but I've been busy with Space Engineers- I mean, midterms.

Two things. Emergence now has a TVTropes page, which needs some love. And ElfCollaborator has confirmed that Emergence will appear in Weiss Reacts, which I am excited for and therefore you should be too.

* * *

**_4: A Real Cat Girl_  
**

_**Blake Belladonna**_

After Yuko left, I didn't have much to do. Thankfully, I still had Ninjas of Love with me, which kept me occupied for a while. But even Ninjas of Love couldn't keep me occupied forever.

I quietly searched the house. It was small and tight, but homey. Yuko's bedroom and her parents' bedroom were upstairs, along with a small den packed tight with a desk and bookshelves. The middle floor contained the kitchen and eating area, living room, and bathroom. The bottom floor had a laundry room, utility room, and an empty parking spot. It was all relatively new, clean, and in good shape.

Figuring out how to use the screen in the cramped living room was easy enough, even though all the controls were in another language. I flipped through the available programs and they were all in the same strange language, so I gave up after about five minutes. There was what looked like a computer terminal in the corner, but I didn't touch it.

I tried my scroll. No service, of course. If this really was some strange land in an unexplored corner of Remnant, or worse, another world entirely, there wouldn't be any. My thoughts drifted as I stared blankly at the scroll.

Strange words. Nekko. Japan. America. North America. Asia. Earth- wasn't that just another word for dirt?

The language. I had never seen or heard it before. It sounded vaguely familiar, but maybe I was just imagining things.

The strangeness of this city. Everything was similar to the cities I had been to, but not quite the same. The streets were narrow and people drove on the wrong side, but that wasn't it. It was just the feel of the city. It was more alive, and less alive, and packed with people, yet more vacant.

And still, that strange, unshakable feeling. Like something was wrong, or something was missing. I couldn't place it. It was unsettling, but not unsettling like the presence of the Grimm. A different kind of unsettling.

It couldn't really be another world-

I bolted up when I heard strange muttering coming from downstairs. That must be Yuko's parents- or one of them. Female voice. Her mom. I left the living room and nearly ran into her by the staircase.

A tan-skinned woman with brown hair stared back at me. I could see the resemblance, though she was obviously older and dressed in a professional fashion. She was so surprised she nearly dropped her bags. She tried to recover, and sputtered, "Oh, hello! You must be Yuko friend?"

I replied casually and respectfully, "Yes. I'm Blake."

"I am Hoshi, Yuko mother," she introduced. "I see you wear nekko- cat ear like daughter."

"Wear? They're not real?" I asked, following her into the kitchen. Was that the odd feeling I had been feeling?

"Of course not," Hoshi laughed. "You not really think that about Japan peoples?"

"So she's not a Faunus, just someone who dresses up as one?" I asked, careful to keep my voice level. Really, I was trying not to panic. Come to think of it, they did look a bit off. How did I miss this? Why did I assume? Was I really that tired? Maybe I did hit my head?

"Faunus?" she questioned. "I not know the word."

"People with animal features. Like me." I wiggled my ears for emphasis.

She nodded. "Oh. Yes."

"Why?" If they were sympathizers, then it would be okay. But sometimes, people did it as a form of mockery, and some of those people... well, the less said about them the better.

"Because it is kawaii. Uh, she think it are cute. That is what her generation do today," Hoshi explained. I hadn't been expecting that. Purely for aesthetics was an explanation I never heard. "Same for you?"

I shook my head and wiggled my ears again. "Uh, no, I'm a faunus. I was born this way."

She didn't seem to understand. Had she never seen a Faunus before? She put the bags down on the kitchen table and asked, "Where are you come from?"

"I'm from Va-" I began, but a loud voice cut me off. Yuko came bounding up the stairs, her feet banging loudly on the wood surface.

It reminded me of Ruby, in a way. _I hope they're okay._

She nearly crashed into us. Yuko said something in the foreign language to her mother, then turned to me. "Sorry I leaved you alone."

She said something else to her mother, then tried to drag me up the stairs. It was more of a gentle tug, but she seemed excited, so I followed her anyway.

"How was day?" she asked excitedly.

"It was fine," I replied in a much less excited way.

She went into her room and tossed her hat onto the cat blanket on her bed. There were no ears underneath. So that was confirmation, then.

"So you're not a faunus," I observed.

"Faunus?" Yuko asked, confused. "I don't understand the word, what it means?"

"It means I have these ears," I explained. "I'm... well, not part animal, but I have animal features. Like the ears, and the eyes, and I can see in the dark."

She was still confused. After a moment of thinking, she said, "You know, I just google it."

"You what?" I asked.

"Google." She sat down at a small, messy desk and opened up a terminal- a slim silver thing with picture of an apple on the lid. She tapped the keyboard and the interface came up. I watched her enter "faunus" in one of the text boxes, then tap the enter/return key on the keyboard.

I guess it was some kind of encyclopedia search thing. A list of results came back. A bunch of weird pictures and something about a horned god of the forest. RWBY wiki and something about graphs-

Wait... RWBY wiki? Not our RWBY... right? What's a wiki? I quickly read the description.

_Faunus__ are a race of humanoid people in the world of RWBY who possess physical animal traits..._

Most of the page was a wall of text. I recognized the Beacon logo in the upper left corner. Art of four figures who looked an awful lot like our team graced the page's background. A picture- maybe drawn or rendered- of myself stared back at me. Well... it looked an awful lot like me. I read the caption below it.

_Certain Faunus may possess animal ears_

Well, that's helpful. I asked, "What is this?"

"Oh! It's RWBY wiki," Yuko said offhand. "You not see before?"

"No," I replied, still reading the page. I scanned, recognizing a few words highlighted in blue. Blake Belladonna- that's me! Velvet Scarlatina. Sun Wukong. I know them! Tukson. Faunus Rights Revolution. Menagerie. The last two were understandable, but why would I be on here? "This wiki, explain it to me."

"Wiki, fan website that everyone can edit. This one for RWBY, which is anime style from Japan. That is where Blake comes from, I think." Yuko tapped a panel on the terminal, and the page changed to one labelled Blake Belladonna.

Main characters. Third character introduced in RWBY. Gambol Shroud. Adam Taurus. Black Trailer. PAX East 2013. Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Nicknames: Kitty, by Roman. Voice actress, Arryn Zech.

"What."

* * *

Review replies!

Sgt. Sporky: Sources on Faunus having better capabilities? I don't recall anything past night vision and possibly better hearing. Blake is having her illusions shattered, a process which I will finish in the next chapter. And yes, there are a few Canadians on this site.

crescentrosehvss: Cliff hates flying, almost as much as Weiss. He's going to complain about everything. Some people are just like that. Like me. I hate flying.

linkthetoaoftime: I don't think Blake would go around announcing it. Yang and Ruby, probably. Weiss, probably, but not actively. Blake strikes me as someone who hides, well, in the shadows.

Jacob Rickshaw: Where Stolen Flame is set is pretty much an open secret at this point. Also, I've heard that people in not-so-nice places just kind of get used to it after a while. It's something I would have liked to have explored in Ice Princess but didn't have the time to do.

TheUndeniableWar: Indeed. One time I went in thinking I was going to kill half an hour. Two hours later, I finally realized what time it was and quit the game.

HeroBladeRiyet: I don't really want to say where this is going in too much detail. I will say that Yang is confirmed and that we may see more characters from Remnant, but not for a while after the conclusion of Act 5.

Reine de la Mort: These are questions I would like to answer, but just haven't gotten around to yet. I planned to write some dramatic and reflective Asides but haven't had the time or motivation to do so.

NovaSwift7: I'm going to dispute the low gravity argument. We've seen acceleration due to gravity on Remnant, and it doesn't look significantly lower than our own. Additionally, people from low gravity worlds would be quite weak, which is clearly not the case on Remnant. Torque, impulse, and inertia are all dependent on mass, not weight. It may be somewhat easier to swing Crescent Rose vertically, but it's just as hard to swing it horizontally. Hits from Grimm are just as powerful as they would be on Earth. Yet they fight Grimm and swing huge, probably quite massive weapons. As for Aura, we know very little about it at this point.

guest 1997: We'll see when we get closer to Stolen Flame.


	25. A Strange Land

I've been feeling kind of burned out and uninspired over the past several days. Blame the midterms. I've got a backlog of Aside ideas coming up in addition to the relatively short Urban Panther.

I thought about doing the first part from Yuko's perspective, but ultimately decided not to. Why? Blake needs all the screen time she can get.

* * *

**25: A Strange Land**

_**Blake Belladonna**_

"What."

"What?" Yuko asked, concerned and confused.

"What is this?" I gasped. This page was about me, but it talked about me like I was some kind of character from a show. Was there a show about us?"

"RWBY? There's a show about us?"

"Yes, I not watch because is, uh, impure, but Akemi like." Yuko shrugged. She tapped the trackpad again and the page changed to one simply labelled _RWBY_.

"What's it like?" I stuttered. I tried to read the page, but it didn't make any sense. Names I didn't recognize, places I'd never heard of, and dates in a format that meant nothing. The fact that I was struggling to keep a calm facade didn't help.

"Sort of anime style, but it is from America," she non-explained.

"I don't know what America is!" I told her. None of this made any sense!

I pushed her aside as gently as I could, given my current state. The trackpad was easy enough to use, pushing around a little pointer on the screen. I didn't give any thought to the lack of a touchscreen, instead selecting the Characters tab.

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang. Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren. Cardin, Russel, Dove, Sky. Coco, Velvet, Fox, Yatsuhashi. Headmaster Ozpin, Professors Goodwitch, Port, and Oobleck. I knew these people.

Episodes. A bunch of titles and dates that meant nothing to me.

Production. Plain text, though not much of it. Had the idea for several years. Red vs Blue. The character that would become Ruby Rose. Rooster Teeth. A badass Red Riding Hood. People who can actually write. Anime homework. Developing the show. IHOP. Casting roles for the leads. "What? What do you mean, came up with the show?"

"Oh, he have idea but have to work on Red versus Blue, which is game show of Halo."

What was she even trying to say? "Idea? This happened! This is about us!"

"You know, you not have to act," Yuko said quietly, scared.

"I'm not acting!" I shouted angrily. "I'm Blake Belladonna! I'm a student at Beacon Academy. I was in Vale, and the next thing I knew I was here. Wherever this is!"

Maybe I was the one who was wrong. Maybe I wasn't really Blake. I reached up and felt my ears. They're real. I'm not a crazy human dressing up as a faunus. I am a faunus. I am Blake Belladonna. But Blake Belladonna doesn't exist. Blake Belladonna is a character, from a world very different than the one I'm in. Was I dreaming? No, this was real. It felt real. This is real.

I needed to escape. I needed to think. I needed to run.

I ran.

* * *

_**Cliff**_

We got up late and didn't make it out to Akihabara until the early afternoon. We took the train- not all that different from SkyTrain- from the hotel. It wasn't too bad. We ate lunch at a maid cafe, which was... strange. After that, we still had quite a bit of time to kill and all of us had somewhere we wanted to go.

Our first destination was this awesome video game store. You know, that retro game store with all the rare stuff that nobody has on our side of the world, except for that one store in Victoria that has everything. I went to browse- all this stuff could be emulated and I wasn't a collector.

It's pretty hard to describe this place. It's packed with games from the past decades, some common and recognizable and some you've never heard of. There are racks of cartridges and discs. The decor is total retro gamer, with game posters and memorabilia scattered everywhere. Of course, this being Japan, it's densely packed, with low ceilings and stacked across several floors.

Isaac, apparently, was here to buy. I looked again at the console in his hands. "Isaac, why are you buying a Super Famicom when you can't afford gas?"

He shrugged. "Monty's paying for it. I'm sure he'd understand."

Ben corrected him. "Uh, no Isaac, we burned through that money halfway through the airfare. I'm paying for it."

Isaac grinned as he spent Ben's money. "That works too."

The next stop was a place Isaac wanted to go to, some manga store that was supposed to be good or something. I'm not really into Japanese fiction, but some of it looked interesting.

I couldn't read it, of course, but I leafed through mangas with neat looking covers. Yeah, I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it's not like I could or would read them.

With a stack of books in his hands, Isaac looked at the manga I was examining and gave me an odd look. "Dude, that's yuri."

"There's Russians in it?" I asked, intrigued.

He told me honestly, "No, actually, it's lesbian porn."

"Gah, what the fuck?" I recoiled and tossed the book back into its rack.

The shop owner shook his head slowly, clearly trying not to laugh. Isaac paid for his books with Ben's money and we left.

The electronics store was more for me and Ben than Isaac. I didn't really touch wires and chips anymore, but Ben was still into it. This place was like a brick-and-mortar SparkFun, packed with basic little components like resistors and capacitors, odds and ends like weird buttons and switches, more advanced stuff like Arduinos, and expensive Japanese tools of the trade.

I was content to sigh at the beautiful tools I knew I couldn't justify the expense of and maybe pick up a few handy and hard to find bits, but for Ben it was like a candy store. He flew up and down the aisles, filling a basket with what probably amounted to hundreds of dollars of parts I doubted he would ever used.

"You know you can buy this stuff at home, right?" I told him.

"But it's cheaper here," he justified, or rather attempted to justify.

I called him on it. "Not much, and it isn't after you factor in exchange rates and the fact that you have to lug it home."

He paused and shrugged. "I have an extra suitcase."

"JAL _charges_ for extra suitcases."

He waved his hand dismissively and lined up to pay. "Eh, whatever."

We stepped out of the store with our bags of weird nerdy goods. I checked my watch habitually and realized that we were running late. "Guys, it's almost four."

"So?" Isaac asked.

"Meeting Blake," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah, we should probably go do that."

* * *

Review replies again. These are disproportionately long compared to the chapters, and I should apologize for that.

15delgizzij: She was trying to figure out where she was, and managing to force herself to keep control, but this kind of opened the floodgates so to speak.

Sgt. Sporky: There seems to be a large range of ability across human and faunus. Maybe we'll see more about this in the future.

crescentrosehvss: That phrase takes on a whole new meaning after the latest episode came out.

NovaSwift7: At the risk of rustling some feathers, I'm just going to state outright that I don't believe Qi is anything but an inaccurate description of explainable biological phenomena. Or, to be more blunt, I'm calling bullshit. Personal opinions aside, the differences between Terrans and Remnans will be explored in detail much later. But we're pretty lame compared to them.

linkthetoaoftime: This is a mistake on my part, she should have said that it's from America. Let's just say she misspoke; she was thinking "not from Japan, from America" but cut off part of it. People do this in real life all the time.

Fourze: Better traits matter little in the face of numerical superiority and probably a better historical position.

HeroBladeRiyet: I've pretty much said where Yang is going to end up several times, it's right in the title card, I'm just going to say it. Syria. Possibly Iraq, but probably Syria.

Guest762: Stolen Flame is Act 4/Yang's arc.


	26. Confirmation Bias

Who saw this one coming?

I still think Blake is easier to write than Ruby and harder than Weiss.

* * *

_**26: Confirmation Bias**_

_**Isaac**_

I knew as soon as we saw her that this wasn't the Blake we were looking for. Going by the pictures from RWBY, the likeness was uncanny. The outfit was perfect, and the material was right. A lot of cosplay looked weird because people used the wrong material but this one didn't have that problem. The signature bow looked like a solid piece and shifted a little as she walked. I noticed a Gambol Shroud, but to be fair Blake did hide it at several points in the series.

But after seeing the actual pictures on Ruby's scroll, nope, nuh-uh, no way. I don't mean to sound racist or anything but she was obviously Japanese and Blake obviously wasn't. I mean she tried to hide it and look more like the real Blake but it just didn't quite work.

Sitting down at the cramped table was really awkward. It was obvious that not only was she not what we were expecting to see, but we weren't what she was expecting to see, either.

She muttered something in Japanese and then said to us, downcast, "I thought I see Ruby and Weiss."

"And we thought we'd see Blake," Cliff replied in an irritated tone before we could stop him.

"I am Blake!" she snapped, clearly quite angry and upset.

"No, like, we thought we'd see the actual Blake," Cliff corrected. After a moment, he added, "That sounds as absurd as it sounds, doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah," I told him.

"You not think Blake real, no?" the girl interrupted.

"Well, yes and no," I replied. "Look, there's been a big misunderstanding. I'm Isaac. These are my friends Cliff and Ben."

"Cliche," Cliff muttered.

"I am Akemi," she introduced.

"Okay, Akemi, this is going to sound insane-"

Cliff cut me off. "You're actually going to tell her?"

I shrugged. "Either she believes us and can help us or doesn't believe us and we lose nothing."

He mulled it over for a moment. "Okay, fair point."

I restarted my explanation. "Like I said, this is going to sound insane. We found the real Ruby Rose about a month ago. Then, later, we found out Weiss was in Donetsk-"

"Donetsk?"

"Yes, Donetsk, Ukraine, where the war is," I confirmed. "So we met her in Kiev and we think the rest of team RWBY is coming and we thought we would find Blake here."

"You expect me to believe?" She waved her arm in a very unblakelike fashion.

"I think Ruby can explain it better," I told her, bringing up video on my phone and handing it to the cosplayer.

"She very good," Akemi commented as she handed back the phone, still not very impressed with us. "But I thought see her, not you."

Cliff shrugged. "Yeah, we thought about bringing her, but it's kind of hard to travel with no passport."

"So you come here to meet me? I am here," Akemi snapped, frustrated.

"No, we came here to find Blake and bring her back to

"The real Blake."

"You come here for fool quest? I not believe. You crazy." She stood up, intending to leave.

"Come on!" Cliff shouted. "Why else would we fly a thousand fucking miles?"

Ben began listing off reasons. "Electronics, anime, cheap electronics, computer parts, weird shit-"

Cliff clared at him. "Ben, don't ruin the dramatic moment."

"Sorry."

"Look, sorry for making you come here," I apologized. "It was our mistake. You don't believe us, that's fine. You're not who we were trying to find, that's fine too. It was a misunderstanding, it happens, it's an inconvenience, yes. We both went out of our way to do something and came away disappointed."

"I think we went out of our way a lot more," Cliff muttered.

"Wait," Akemi interrupted as we stood to leave. "Maybe you are look for other Blake?"

"What other Blake?" Cliff asked slowly.

She said slowly, "There was other Blake at gathering. I not know well."

"We only saw one Blake and that was you," I pointed out.

She nodded. "She is shy of the camera, so she is filming."

"She was behind the camera the whole fucking time?" Cliff exclaimed like this was a Hangover-esque revelation or something.

"We don't know if it's her," Ben pointed out. "It's probably just another Japanese Blake cosplayer."

"She not Japanese," Akemi interrupted. "She speak English good, maybe from America, but not talk much. I know Yuko confuse her."

"Blake would sound American," I stated.

"So would three hundred million other people- more if you count Canadians and other groups that sound American but aren't."

"She stay with Yuko," Akemi said helpfully. "I ask, maybe she know more?"

"That would be great, thanks," I replied.

Akemi pulled out her phone- definitely not a scroll- and fired off a text. A few seconds later, the phone buzzed and she told us, "Yuko say Blake run away."

Cliff heaved a deep sigh. "On one hand, that's pretty much confirmation. On the other hand, you've got to be _fucking_ kidding me!"

* * *

_**Blake Belladonna**_

I found myself running back toward the first spot I remembered from here. Where I arrived. If I arrived.

So many questions. Where was here? How did I get here? Why was there a show about us? Was it really fiction? How much of it was real and how much of it wasn't? Why did people dress as Faunus? Why did people dress like me? Was I really- Why did the cars drive on the wrong side of the road? Was I really Blake Belladonna? Was I just someone who thought she was Blake Belladonna?

I don't know why I gravitated toward that spot. I guess I was looking for answers, even though I knew that I wouldn't find any. It would be nice to have someone to explain it all, but I knew that wouldn't happen. The best I could hope for was... well, I didn't know, really.

I couldn't think with so many thoughts in my head. I needed to think, I needed to figure out what was going on. I was so confused, so disoriented, so afraid. Even for me, this was strange. I needed to run away, think, find answers.

Then again, that was what I always did, wasn't it? If there was a problem, sooner or later I ended up running away. It was all I had ever really known.

* * *

Review replies, again.

linkthetoaoftime: Probably, but it'll most likely be delayed until close to the end of her arc for obvious reasons.

Courtney O'brien: Sorry, but there are no plans to bring CFVY to Earth like what happened to RWBY. Draw as much from that statement as you want.

Sgt. Sporky: Why not both? In all seriousness, this is probably going to be the darkest and most serious part of Emergence, or at least Emergence Part 1. As for Blake, it's more a matter of having lots of time to think and nobody to adequately explain things to her, and you may be right about her being more vulnerable (I would use the term sensitive) in the first place. Ruby is naive and optimistic and met people who could explain everything fairly quickly. Weiss had Katya and a war. Blake has lots of time to think and Yuko was barely there and they can't communicate well.

Happy1K1nob1: Serious Sam? I don't see a joke, but I haven't really played the games much.

Epic Zealot Productions 2.0: Uh, what?


	27. Hide and Seek

If you think that I originally had more plans for Miyako and Kiyomi, then you're right! This is probably the shortest chapter of Emergence ever, sorry.

* * *

_**27: Hide and Seek**_

_**Isaac**_

"So?" Cliff asked awkwardly.

"We do what we came here to do," I replied. "We find Blake."

"If it's Blake," Ben interjected.

"It's probably Blake," Cliff told him.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Remember, Blake runs from problems."

"Hello? I still here," Akemi pointed out.

I apologized. "Sorry."

"I think we talk to Yuko," the Japanese Blake suggested. "She maybe helpful. It not far."

"Okay," I agreed. "Ben? Cliff?"

"Sure," Ben replied.

Cliff nodded. "Not like I've got any better ideas."

Ben paid and we followed Akemi out of the cafe. She led us down the street, pulling out her phone and texting as she walked.

"Dumb," Cliff muttered from behind. I glared at him.

We met Yuko about halfway to the train station. I didn't know what she looked like, but the cat ears were pretty distinctive and I recognized that right away. They looked pretty good, actually. If people had cat ears I guess that's what it would look like. When Akemi started walking toward her I figured this must be Yuko.

I introduced myself and my friends. "I'm Isaac. This is Ben and Cliff. You must be Yuko."

It occurred to me briefly that two cat girls and three white guys standing in the middle of the sidewalk talking in borderline gibberish probably looked insane to passersby.

Or it would if this wasn't the otaku capital of the world.

"Hi. I am Yuko, I am friend of Akemi," she replied. I guess she was trying to be cheerful but Blake running off probably disturbed her quite a bit.

"So, what happened?" I asked diplomatically.

Yuko was confused. "What happened?"

"Start at the beginning," Cliff suggested. "When you met Blake."

"Well, she meet us," Yuko explained. "I am walking with Miyako and Kiyomi to gathering, and Blake approach, she ask to come with, we say okay. But she very quiet during gathering, I think, my English not good, her Japanese not at all.

"But she act very confused. She not understand Tokyo, or Japan, or America. I show map, she insist on four country-"

Akemi said something to her in Japanese, and she self-corrected, "No, four kingdom, like from show. I not watch, Akemi watch. But she not understand Earth, she say nowhere to stay, I let stay with me with parents okay. Next day, she not understand cat ear, seem to think is real."

Cliff muttered something that I didn't catch.

Yuko got more excited and frantic. "And then I show RWBY wiki, and she go quiet, and then loud, and disturbed, like she really think is Blake. She say, why show about us, is real, then panic and run away."

"That's Blake," Cliff muttered.

"Yeah, that's Blake," I agree.

"What?" Yuko and Akemi asked in near-unison.

"We can explain everything later," Cliff insisted. "We've got to find her first."

"Well, we should start looking, then," I replied.

He shook his head. "We're looking for someone who is good at hiding, who probably does not want to be found, in the middle of Tokyo."

"So?" Ben asked, before figuring it out. "Oh, fuck."

"She is pretty distinctive," I pointed out, and then realized I was wrong. "But then again, this is Tokyo."

"We could perform a Bayesian search," Cliff suggested.

"A what?" I asked.

"A Bayesian search," he repeated. "Basically it's where you identify the places something is most likely to be, combine that with how likely it is you'll be able to find them, and prioritize based on that."

I guess that makes sense. "But where would Blake be?"

"Akihabara," Ben said.

Cliff snapped, "No shit, Sherlock."

"Maybe more specifically?"

Cliff agreed with me. "Yeah."

"Well?"

I thought about it for a moment before blurting out, "Where she arrived."

"You think that's gonna work twice?" Cliff asked.

It seemed cliched, but it made sense. In a strange new world, you would want to get as close as you could to the old one. Whether you were looking for a way back or just for closure, you'd come back to where you arrived or where you thought you arrived. It happened with Ruby. I don't think it happened with Weiss because there was a war going on.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Okay, let's try it," Cliff said, whirling around and starting back down the street.

"This is insane," Akemi muttered.

"I went to the Ukraine to get Weiss," I told her. "Insane is kind of the status quo now."

"That was absolutely not a rebuttal," Cliff pointed out.

I shrugged. "I know."

"Are you say this is real Blake or do I misunderstand?" Akemi interrupted again.

"Yes, this is really Blake Belladonna, or at least we think so," I replied honestly.

"How is possible?" she asked.

"I don't know," I admitted, quickly adding, "I know you probably think we're crazy but it actually makes sense in context. Look, once we find her we'll explain everything, okay?"

"So we go?" Yuko asked.

"Yes," I replied simply.

"So we go?" Yuko asked again.

I guess she was asking where we wanted to go. "Back to Akihabara. Where you met Blake."

We headed back into the depths of Akihabara, past the manga shop and game store we'd visited earlier. I was actually still carrying the Super Famicom I'd bought with Ben's money. We followed Yuko, who led us back to where they were when Blake first appeared.

I couldn't pick her out in the crowd, but I had a feeling she was close.

"The alley," Cliff pointed out.

I looked at it. It wasn't particularly dark, and it was actually kind of busy with some people doing stuff. Not like illegal stuff; there were businesses there. "The alley?"

Cliff shrugged. "Yeah, they always end up in the alley."

"I thought you're the one who pointed out that life doesn't work on video game logic,"

He shrugged again. I sighed and stepped toward the alley. As we entered the alley, I thought I saw a black bow appear and disappear a few metres from us.

"Blake Belladonna?"

* * *

Review replies:

Tatopatato: People don't already love me?

Jacob Rickshaw: They were bound to screw up eventually. Stolen Flame is going to be messy. It's going to be intense and dramatic and I'm both looking forward to writing it and dreading writing it.

Happy1K1nob1: Not specifically related to your comment, but I'm surprised about the number of people who still write on paper first. I do a little brainstorming in class but other than that my entire workflow is electronic.

linkthetoaoftime: Or there's only four chapters left with an average chapter length of 1000 words. More seriously, there is some logic going on here.

Slacktivist: I actually haven't read that, but I probably should because I've heard good things about it.

HeroBladeRiyet: There's a difference between panic and insanity.

StrangePointOfView: It's going places, and that's all I'm willing to say for now. There are two more acts planned for this part, and then definitely at least one sequel.

Guest 1997: Weiss Reacts to Weiss Reacts was kind of a one-time thing. I might do more similar asides later, but right now I'm focusing on the core story.


	28. Fact and Fiction

Well, Volume 2 is almost over and that makes me sad.

Urban Panther was supposed to be wrapped up by now, but it looks like it'll be delayed for another few days. Next week will be more Asides to hopefully fill some of the gaps, and Stolen Flame will launch a week late on the tenth.

I promise each episode of Stolen Flame will be at least 12 minutes long.

* * *

_**28: Fact and Fiction**_

_**Ben**_

"Blake Belladonna?" Isaac asked, presumably referring the the black bow briefly visible in the crowd.

The black bow started moving, and a certain cat Faunus popped out of the crowd and zipped down the alley.

"No, don't run!" Cliff shouted.

"Fuck! God damn it!" We ran after her, but there was no way a trio of unfit Earthicans were going to catch up to a cat ninja hunter.

I shouted again. "Blake, wait!"

"We can explain everything!" Isaac shouted. We chased her out of the alley and on to another street.

Deciding I was better off shouting louder than trying to run faster, Cliff stopped. As I continued to chase Blake, I heard him say, "I know you're scared, I know you're confused, but you know as well as I do that running won't work!"

She turned, staring right at Cliff, then slowed down and stopped. Eyes narrowed, she stalked toward us, like we were prey. She came to a stop about a metre away from us. Far enough away to react, close enough to be scary as all hell. By this time Cliff had caught up and I saw him visibly gulp, terrified.

Keeping one hand on her weapon, Blake pointed a finger toward us... well, toward Cliff, I guess.

She snapped, "You can explain this? You can explain how I seem to be from a work of fiction? You can explain where this place is? You can explain why people dress like Faunus but don't even realize they exist?"

"Actually, yes," Cliff replied as calmly as he could, which was not very. "Believe it or not, you're not the first one to arrive here."

I thought I saw Blake's bow twitch before she sighed. "Fine."

* * *

_**Cliff**_

We sat down in the same cafe we'd met Akemi at. It was kind of odd, with a feeling of deja vu, especially when we ordered basically the same stuff. Blake just got water. You'd think she'd want something stronger than that.

By the way, with Akemi and Blake standing beside each other, it's not even close. For one, Blake is a few inches taller, and she's much more pale. It would be too weird if they sat together, so they sat at opposite corners of the table.

I was sitting across from Blake, so right after the obligatory introductions I began by reassuring her, "First, you're not crazy, second, you really are Blake Belladonna, third, RWBY really is a show, and fourth, this really is another world. Welcome to Earth."

"What?" Blake asked, though she was more confused than angry this time.

"You're not on Remnant anymore," I repeated, launching my explanation. "You're on another planet known to its inhabitants- us- as Earth. We are human, but we're weaker and slower than your kind. On Earth, there is no Dust, no Aura, no Grimm, a population of about seven billion and close to two hundred distinct countries, around sixty ethnic groups if you only count really big ones, and eighty languages with more than ten million speakers. We've been to the moon, we have harnessed the power of the atom for both peaceful and destructive purposes, and we've build a worldwide communications network called the Internet. That about covers it."

"What?" Blake repeated, probably unable to form a cohesive sentence. She pulled herself together quickly, and glared at me. "I thought you said you were going to explain everything."

"I'm getting there," I replied.

"You just told me the most insane thing I've ever heard," Blake retorted.

Isaac intervened. "Look, we know this is shocking and very confusing, but we're not making any of this up. It was just as shocking to us when it started happening."

"It started happening?" Blake asked.

"Let's start at the beginning," I said. "We're fans of a show called RWBY. That's spelled with a W. It was launched about two years ago. You, along with the rest of your team and a bunch of others including Torchwick and Ozpin, exist as fictional-"

Blake interrupted, "But I'm here. I'm not fictional."

I nodded. "Yes. According to some of our theoretical physicists, that situation is not only possible, but also certain. We now know that they were right."

"What if I'm not really Blake Belladonna?" She asked quietly. "I mean, what if I'm some other person that just hit her head and woke up thinking she was a fictional character."

What if it was someone scamming us? I dismissed the possibility. They wouldn't take it this far, especially since it's not like we actually had anything to offer. "Are your ears real?"

"Yes, but I could be another-"

"There are no Faunus on Earth," Ben said bluntly.

"It's all so strange," Blake muttered. "How can I believe you?"

"It would explain everything, wouldn't it?" Isaac replied. "

"Okay, where was I? Right, we're RWBY fans, you know what RWBY is now, et cetera," I said. "Okay, so about a month ago, we ran into Ruby. Yes, Ruby Rose, and yes, the real Ruby Rose. She was as lost as you were. A few weeks later, we found Weiss Schnee. And a few weeks after that..."

"You found me," Blake finished.

"Yes."

"Do you think I could talk to them?" she asked quietly. I'd actually been expecting this.

"Sure," I replied, pulling out my phone and bringing Skype up. Thankfully, it connected first try, and showed that "Ben" - actually Jen and the girls back at the apartment- was online. I hit the call button before handing the phone to a confused Blake.

* * *

_**Ben**_

"So, what do we do now?" Blake asked, handing the phone back to Cliff.

"We put the team back together," Isaac said. "We'll take you back to Canada and wait for Yang to show up."

She asked what I was thinking. "Then what?"

"We haven't actually thought that far ahead yet," I admitted. Well, I tried, but nobody seemed to care.

"But I'm sure you four can figure it out," Cliff added quickly.

"Why are you doing this? What do you hope to gain?" Blake asked, sighing.

"If some of your favourite fictional characters appeared in the real world, wouldn't you help them?" Isaac asked.

"I guess," Blake said quietly. After a pause, she asked, "Canada is another kingdom- country- right?"

"Yes."

"How do we get there?"

"Last time we got Weiss a fake passport, but, uh, we kind of didn't this time," Cliff admitted sheepishly. "We don't really have an exit strategy for Japan."

"But security here isn't very good," Isaac added. "I'm sure you could get onto a plane to Canada and we could meet up on the other end."

"A plane?" Blake asked.

"Like an airship," I answered.

"You want me to sneak onto a transport and cross two borders without being detected," Blake deadpanned.

Before I could remark on it, Isaac answered, "Yes."

"Okay."

* * *

Review replies, again.

Tatopatato: Absolutely not. Stolen Flame is Act 4, and there is one more act planned for the first part of Emergence. I'm not sure if the next part will be called Emergence or something else, but it will follow on directly. There are three longer acts planned for that.

Yinko: Grimm lack souls and produce a certain feeling. Terrans lack Aura, but don't produce the same feeling. I'm not going to speculate too much because it's going to be discussed in-universe at some point.

mastermind: There was already Weiss Reacts to Weiss Reacts in the Asides, and more is planned if I ever have time to write it. As for learning the future, the problem is that as soon as they left Remnant, the timeline diverged, and while some things may still be relevant, the Remnant they go back to won't be the same. Even if it didn't, they would have at best half a year of foresight, plus some inside info they shouldn't have.


	29. Sleight of Hand

Ugh, that finale. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but after all that buildup it was kind of a letdown.

I know this is probably equally disappointing, but it's Halloween, I'm tired, and I've taken up Doom modding again.

* * *

_**29: Sleight of Hand**_

_**Blake Belladonna**_

I'd done infiltration before. I'd stowed away before. I tried to convince myself this was no different. I was nervous. I mean, I was always nervous, but this time I was even more nervous. It looked kind of like Vale, but it was different world that operated under different rules.

One mistake could result in disaster. Sometimes you could recover, sometimes you couldn't. And in this strange new place, there were a lot of unknowns. It was those things you couldn't account for, or didn't account for, that caused the most problems.

The three young men tried to brief me on what to expect, but I got the feeling they didn't really know. I would have to sneak into the airport, into the restricted area, find a container headed for YVR and get inside, then hope they loaded it onto the right plane. As for the actual security, they told me that they weren't as good as they were in Vale, probably, and that there would be a lot of security cameras to avoid.

I prepared the best I could. Gambol Shroud was basically all I needed- and all I had. They told me to pack a few other things, so I did. Fingerprints were apparently a major component of forensics here, so I added gloves to my outfit. It would be cold on the plane, so they gave me a thick jacket. And the flight would be long, so I had some energy bars and a vacuum bottle filled with water. All of it I either wore or packed into a small satchel.

There were so many other thoughts on my mind, but I forced myself to focus. Those could come later. The mission was my priority.

It was night, but the area was well-lit, so it wasn't as useful as I would have hoped. Still, there were plenty of shadows to hide in. I only saw a few guards, and they didn't look that attentive.

This might actually work.

They dropped me off just outside the airport. Gambol Shroud was stowed and I was wearing my borrowed gloves and black toque. I climbed easily over the fence, dropping silently on the other side.

In the failing light, people might still see me, but they wouldn't be able to make me out well. Instead of trying to disappear, I walked briskly and purposefully. If anyone saw the dark, blurry shape, they would probably assume I was just another worker.

Unless I was missing something.

Gate 74. Not too far, but they were already loading the plane, which meant there were plenty of people around. I slowed and faded into the shadows, creeping slowly toward the waiting aircraft.

I didn't get a good look at the airplane, but it looked both graceful and menacing. It had one huge engine on each wing, and the wings were very long. I had looked at pictures earlier and they looked kind of neat, but technology was more Ruby's thing.

Silently, I created a shadow clone, which ran in front of the plane. The loading crew paused in their work, pointing at the new figure. While they were distracted by 'me', I darted the remaining distance to the plane and jumped up into the open cargo door.

I had to find a place to hide before they started loading cargo again. Several containers were already loaded. I squeezed between them, heading toward the back of the airplane. Almost at the very back, there was a pair of smaller containers with quite a bit of space between them.

That would work. I nestled down between the two containers and tried to be as quiet as possible as the loaders finished their work. Very soon, the cargo was all loaded and I heard the door shut in front of me.

I did it. Maybe.

I pulled my phone- well, Isaac's phone- out of my pocket and send the pre-arranged "all good" code phrase. _The cat is in the bag._

* * *

_**Ben**_

"Gate 74, right?" Isaac asked as we exited the security screening place.

"I think so," I replied. I pulled the ticket out of my pocket and checked it. "Yeah."

"I hate airports," Cliff grumbled as we headed toward the gate. "And planes. And air travel in general."

He paused. "I am kind of excited to finally fly on the Dreamliner, though. It might suck slightly less."

"We're almost home," I replied.

"I know," Cliff sighed. "Let's just get this-"

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I held up my hand, stopping him. I pulled the device out and checked it. "Blake is on the plane."

"Is it the right plane?"

"Hopefully," I replied.

"Fucking brilliant," Cliff sighed.

"Well, we just have to hope it's going to go right," Isaac said levelheadedly. "There's not much we can do at this point."

"No shit."

* * *

_**Blake Belladonna**_

The flight was probably the worst form of transport I had ever stowed away on.

It started okay. I could hear the two big engines start up, and they were surprisingly quiet for their size. We moved around on the ground for a while before the engines really began to roar with raw power and the plane accelerated. It wasn't a harsh acceleration- it was firm but much less than a Bullhead- but it felt wrong. It took me a moment to figure out that we were accelerating horizontally, not vertically.

The first thing I realized was how cold it was. Cliff had assured me that the cargo bay was pressurized, which meant I wouldn't die from lack of oxygen. He said it may or may not be heated, and that it would probably get pretty cold. It turned out that was an understatement. It didn't help that I wasn't moving around. Even with the thick coat, I was freezing, and I was really glad I had gloves.

The second thing I realized was how boring it was going to be. Unlike some others, I hadn't put any games on my scroll. Isaac's phone had some, but I needed to save its battery for later and none of them looked very appealing. It was dark in the cabin and that made it hard to read, so I tried and gave up quickly.

Cliff had told me to sleep on the plane, and I tried, but I was too tense to do it. My thoughts kept drifting to the same questions I had asked when I had first arrived. Even after it had been explained, I still had no answers. It was crazy, really. I was stowing away on a form of transport that didn't even exist on Remnant, heading to a country I'd never heard of, helped by complete strangers. But I was meeting my team, the same team, who had somehow also ended up here.

Finally, I felt the plane start descending, and there were a bunch of odd whirring and whining sounds. The engines throttled back and soon I felt the impact of the wheels against the ground. Then, oddly enough, the engines throttled up again, and I grabbed onto the container, expecting the plane to start accelerating. But it slowed, and the engines throttle back. I felt the plane move around on the ground a little before stopping and then the engines shut down.

Soon, the cargo doors opened, letting in rays of blinding sunshine. I heard them bring the cargo lift up to the front door, and there were bashing sounds as they began unloading the containers from the front of the plane.

Although they had opened the rear door, they weren't unloading yet. I crept toward it, then cautiously checked if it was clear. They hadn't brought the lift over yet, and there was nobody underneath. Quietly, I dropped down to the pavement below.

And almost got caught by one of the unloaders operating the lift by the front of the plain. I thought he saw me. I thought we locked eyes. But a second later, he turned and continued unloading cargo. Heart racing, I went the other way, making a mad dash for the perimeter and throwing out a half-baked shadow clone as a distraction. Once I reached the fence, I climb-hopped over to freedom.

I stripped off the gloves and toque, but I was still cold so I kept the jacket, stuffing the other items into my pockets. After making sure my bow was still secure, I set off for the arrivals area. I drew a few odd looks from some of the passersby, but they continued on their business.

I searched the crowd for Ruby and Weiss. I recognized Weiss first, then saw Ruby beside her. Before I could do anything, she zipped out of the crowd and embraced me in a bone-crushing hug. "Blaaaaaaaake!"

Weiss stepped up behind her, a look of sympathy on her face. "Welcome to Canada, Blake."

It felt like it was over. But I knew it had only just begun.

* * *

Review replies:

Happy1K1nob1: The assumption for the time being is that Grimm have no souls and Terrans have souls but no Aura, but the exact nature of Aura and the soul question will be brought up again much, much later.

Tatopatato: I think there has been published fanfiction in the past, but not for RWBY.

linkthetoaoftime: Stolen Flame will, at worst, return to Ice Princess length chapters. Hopefully they'll be even longer.

up up and away: We'll see. It's going to be darker, that's for sure.

guest 1997: I've wanted to explore a lot of those things more, but I just haven't had the time to write it. We'll see some more in upcoming Asides, Stolen Flame, and after the conclusion of the first part.


	30. Only One Left

And that's it for Urban Panther. A bit narmy, maybe, and a bit rambly; I'm not really happy with this chapter. Stolen Flame teaser tomorrow, then some Asides while I try to finish up the planning of Stolen Flame.

I originally wrote this in the wrong perspective and some of that might still be in here. Sorry about that.

Of course, there's a teaser for Act 4 (Stolen Flame) after.

* * *

_**30: Only One Left**_

There were some things about life on Earth that didn't surprise Blake Belladonna, and some that did.

She was initially shocked by the actual differences between Earth humans and Remnant humans. Though she had been told no one on Earth had an Aura or Semblance, she found it hard to believe. Though not everyone used theirs, everyone on Remnant had it. And even taking the lack of Aura into account, Earth humans were weaker, slower, and less durable.

It didn't even occur to her that Earth didn't have Dust until Weiss pointed it out. Despite the lack of the fundamental driving force behind all Remnant technology, Earth had managed to build powerful, efficient civilizations. Or maybe not so efficient. Earth needed a lot of energy, and none of the sources they had sounded very efficient.

The lack of Grimm was the other big difference between Remnant and Earth. They had monsters in legends, but they were just that- legends. Some of the wildlife was more vicious than others, but there were no soulless monsters prowling the woods ripping people apart. And when she thought about it, those two missing elements are basically what drove Earth to what it is today, so similar yet different from Remnant.

Earth's history was much more violent than Remnant's. She was horrified when she heard about the fighting in the Middle East, and even more horrified when Cliff shrugged and told her that was nothing. The most violent conflict in history, World War II (yes, they had two), killed more people than lived in the four kingdoms. Even without Dust or powerful warriors, they found ways to kill each other in brutal ways.

Yet the world of Earth wasn't all bad. For the most part, acceptance had triumphed over racism, tolerance over hatred, peace over war. Yes, on a planet full of humans, they'd found petty differences to hate each other for. Skin colour, facial features, religious convictions, political ideologies. Hate. And out of the hate tolerance had triumphed more often than not.

Life wasn't as hard as Weiss made it out to be. Sure, they were crammed into a tiny apartment, and there was never quite enough to eat, but it was far from the worst she had experienced. She slept in a corner of the server room, which was a little cold but nice and dark most of the time. The biggest problem she found was the boredom.

She immersed herself in books. There weren't any familiar names, of course, but Earth's authors had produced plenty to choose from. She started with Cliff's techno-thrillers before moving onto Jen's mysteries and then finding books she actually wanted to read. She certainly had enough time on her hands, with no school, no job, and nothing to fight for.

There were certain things that didn't seem to bother Weiss or Ruby that she kept coming back to.

She was the only Faunus on the entire planet. She felt alone, isolated, lonely. Although she trusted her team, she felt they could not sympathize the same way another Faunus could. She felt as if they were the last of their kind.

They existed as fiction here. Ruby thought that was "actually kind of cool", and Weiss said she just didn't think about it. But it was disturbing to her. What was real? What counted as reality? Was it some coincidence? How was it possible? How did you define reality? Was Remnant waiting out there somewhere, or was it just an abstraction?

Where would we go from here? Jen said that they should be in school, but that they hadn't figure out how to get us into school yet. But would they ever be able to fit in on an alien world? They were outsiders, they were different. They grew up on a completely different world, had completely different experiences. They learned different skills, had different knowledge. They weren't even the same biologically.

Ruby thought they would make it back to Remnant, and she still wasn't sure what Weiss was thinking, but she was pretty sure we would be stuck on Earth at least for the near future.

An uncertain future.

* * *

_**Act 4 Teaser**_

A sharp pain brought the blonde back to consciousness.

She rubbed her head where the rock had struck and said, sleepily, "I'm awake, I'm awake, geez."

Half-asleep became fully awake as soon as she saw the armed man pointing a gun at her. He was dressed in black, with his face covered, and a mid-sized rifle in his hands. Two other men, dressed in black or green with their faces covered, held similar rifles, though they were not pointed straight at her.

"Whoa!" She bolted upright.

Her first instinct was to react, to start punching. Not too long ago, she would have just gone ahead and done it, but recent events had tempered her tendencies somewhat. She forced herself to calm down and think. She would figure out how tough these people were before starting up a fight.

She was confused, disoriented, and half asleep. She needed to get her bearings, she needed to figure out how she got here. She had her suspicions, but they didn't feel right.

So she held up her arms in the usual pose of surrender. However, her weapons were always close at hand, and this was something that had caught others off guard before. With more nervousness than she actually felt, she asked, "What do you want?"

One of the men said something in a language she didn't understand, and the man pointing the gun at her- their leader?- berated him in the same language. He jerked his gun toward an old, dirty vehicle sitting behind them. "Into the truck."

"Why should I?" she objected. Even in her confused and disoriented state, she knew that was a bad idea.

"Because there are three of us and we have guns," the man said, dropping the facade of politeness. "Are you really that stupid?"

"Okay, okay." The blonde began walking toward the truck. As she did so, her arms dropped.

"Keep your hands up!" the masked man snapped.

She complied. These men really didn't realize, did they? Well, she could teach them a lesson once she was inside the vehicle. Though her appearance deceived many, she was far from stupid. Inside a vehicle, she would have a massive advantage over these men with their long, unwieldly rifles. She noticed that one of the guns pointed at her had a blade under the barrel. So it probably transformed into some kind of spear or sword. She would have to be careful of that one.

She forced herself to be painted. She was still confused, and acting without thinking could result in a lot of trouble. She knew that from personal experience.

The truck had a fabric cover over the back, and two men with similar rifles were waiting inside. Keeping his gun trained on her, the man in black pushed her inside and onto the left bench seat, taking a position directly across. He slung his rifle and drew a pistol, pointing the new weapon at her. That seemed odd. Why would he change weapons?

It was at this point when she noticed the stench. These men smelled like huntsmen who had been in the field for weeks, and the truck was thick with strange but disgusting chemical smells. Her nose wrinkled visibly.

One of the men noticed. "You think you're so clean, filthy slut?"

"Well, I'm certainly cleaner than you," she began to reply, but was drowned out by the engine starting. With a jolt, the truck began to move. She commented, "Wow, what a piece of junk."

There was no response, but she noticed that several of the men were staring lecherously at her. She winked at the man who had called her filthy, who blinked, startled, at the reaction.

It was always good to throw them off.

She tried to get a view of their surroundings, but all she could see was the rough road they were travelling along, through a dusty, ruined city. It wasn't a place she recognized, and that was beginning to scare her.

"Huh. I think I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere," the blonde woman- really, more of a girl- said nonchalantly.

"Are you stupid, woman?" the man who called her filthy spat.

"Hey, no need to get nasty!"

"This is Raqqa," the man with the pistol told her. "Once a great city that your people have bombed into dust."

"My people?" the girl asked, confused and showing it.

"You Americans," the man spat, venom in his voice. "And Great Britain, too."

She was more perplexed than afraid. "Huh? I'm from Vale."

He glared at her, eyes ice cold. "A made-up country will not save you."

That renewed the apprehension in the blonde-haired girl. Her voice turned serious. "Save me from what? Where are we going?"

"If you do not already know, you will find out soon enough," the man said menacingly.

She turned silent.

"What is your name?" he asked suddenly.

"My name?" she asked. "Why should I give you my name?"

He adjusted his grip on the pistol. "Because you are our hostage. I must know your name."

Her reply was cold, but tinged with anger. "Yang Xiao Long."

* * *

Review replies and after-show notes. So yes, Stolen Flame is set in ISIS territory. There's some serious shit about to go down, and it's about to get a lot more intense. Stolen Flame was originally planned to be the last act of Emergence, but there were some changes and there is now a fifth act after it, tentatively titled The New World. I'm not going to reveal anything about the fifth act yet, but there has been some slight hinting already and there will be some in Stolen Flame.

Also, watching ISIS videos... ugh. The things I do for this fic... Rewatching the Yellow trailer was totally worth it, though.

Tatopatato: This has happened in the past, and there are also cases where works fall under the definition of fair use.

linkthetoaoftime: She can see in the dark, but it's still hard to read her book.

AnonymousReading: It was definitely rushed. Blame the midterms.

Jlargent: Frustratingly for all of us, the answer is "maybe".

Happy1K1nob1: We'll see if I can actually deliver on it, though.

Guest762: I'd actually confirmed ISIS territory in the responses a few chapters back. But now... officially confirmed.

Guest: Blake has Ninjas of Love and only Ninjas of Love. In the first act, I was still trying to sort out where I wanted to take the story. You can reflect that in-universe; they were still trying to figure out what was going on and how to do things but by the time Ice Princess rolled around they at least knew how to work together. So far I've found Weiss easiest to write and Ruby the hardest, with Blake in the middle.


	31. It Gets Worse

And the much-anticipated Act 4: Stolen Flame begins. I've been itching to write this arc, and it's definitely more complex and challenging, but it's more in line with what I've written before, and the plot is pretty solidly locked down. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading this and I'll enjoy writing this.

Did you know that Emergence has a TVTropes page? Search for "rwby emergence tvtropes" (with or without quotes) and it should pop up. I've noticed that at least person has been editing it. To those people, thank you. To everyone else, it could really use some Wiki Love.

As usual, review replies are at the bottom.

* * *

_**31: It Gets Worse**_

_**Sam**_

I crashed onto the couch in our quad and turned on the TV. Predictably, it was still on the news, probably because of Jimmy and his need to keep up to date. I was going to change the channel to something more mindless before I heard the headline.

"Who is The Bride? This woman who allegedly escaped her ISIS captors in a botched propaganda film, possibly a beheading, is making headlines around the world. But is the video real?" the anchor introduced. She warned, "This story contains footage some may find disturbing."`

A picture of a blurry woman in yellow was shown as the thumbnail for the story. It reminded me of a certain someone, so I kept listening.

"The video in question was not released by ISIS, but by the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, who claimed that they had found the camera outside the city." The anchor disappeared and the video in question came up on screen. It was somewhat low-res, but showed a woman who, although wearing yellow, looked nothing like the character from the Tarantino film. To her right was a masked man with a knife, probably our friend Jihadi John.

"Unlike the released ISIS beheading videos, this one has not been edited, and we are able to get a glimpse into- supposedly- how these videos are made," the anchor explained over the video.

"You will read that," the masked man said, motioning to the camera with his knife. "You will read exactly what that says, you will not deviate, or I will cut your throat."

The woman, surprisingly, refused. The audio quality wasn't the best but she did sound kind of like who I was thinking of. "Uh, no. I'm not going to read that."

He continues to threaten her. "Are you stupid? You will read that or I will cut your throat!"

"As you can see, this woman, dubbed "The Bride" has not only resisted but outright refused her captors. No hostage has been known to put up this kind of defiance in the face of the brutal group until now."

The woman refused again. "I don't know who you are, what you want, or what any of what I'm supposed to be reading means. Explain it to me, and maybe I'll think about it."

She winked at him. "I'm not as easy as you think."

The man put the knife against her throat. In a split second, she reacted, jumping up and lashing out with a fist before the video suddenly cut off.

The anchor explained, "The rest of the footage is too gruesome to be shown. It shows the same woman incapacitating or killing five other men, most of them armed with automatic rifles. She does so mostly with her own fists. At some point, one of the men falls or is tossed against the camera and the video cuts out."

With her fists? I don't even like Tarantino, and I know that The Bride's signature weapon is her sword.

But there is another girl in yellow who does fight with her fists. It couldn't be, could it?

We _did_ find Weiss in Donetsk.

Interrupting my thoughts, the anchor continued, "The woman in the video was never named, and she was nicknamed "The Bride" by Western media, presumably in reference to the character from Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill. In that film, The Bride, portrayed by Uma Thurman, brutally kills several people wearing a distinctive yellow motorcycle suit."

"Though the video is as awe-inspiring as it is brutal, official sources dispute its authenticity," the anchor explained. The screen changed to a wall of text. "A statement from the Pentagon states that "an unarmed woman defeating seven armed fighters in the manner depicted is not only unlikely, but also not physically possible." The Canadian Security Intelligence Service concurs, stating that the video is most likely staged."

The story continued, but I had stopped listening by that point. I pulled out my laptop and brought up the original video which was on LiveLeak. Unfortunately, its quality was no better than the one that had been shown on TV, with lots of blur and boxes.

It started the same, with Jihadi John ordering and the woman refusing. This time, though, it didn't cut off when she threw the first punch. It continued to show his head fucking _exploding_. That didn't look like bare fists. That looked like a ballistic fist.

Or an Ember Celica.

The woman hesitated for a moment, like she wasn't expecting his head to explode. To be fair, I wasn't either. There was some Arabic shouting and gunshots. The woman leapt into action, punching another one of the men square in the chest and knocking him out of frame in a bloody spray. She ducked under a spray of bullets and exploded another head at the edge of the screen.

Holy shit. I could see why people would think Tarantino because of the violence, but the fighting style was totally Yang Xiao Long.

Two men rushed onto the scene, and she jumped toward one. He had his bayonet out, which caught on her hair and ripped out a chunk. Suddenly, the woman's eyes went red (as far as I could tell) and her hair appeared to catch fire (though it could have been mistaken for a reflection). But to me, it fit.

There was a colossal spray of blood and other bits of human when she punched the guy who cut her hair, and another spray when she hit the other one. There was some more shouting and gunshots from behind the camera, then she punched toward the camera, which was splashed with blood before it fell over and the video ended.

I could see why they didn't show this on TV. It was bloody and brutal, even sickening. And possibly the last missing part of Team RWBY.

I sit back and sighed. "Fuck."

* * *

_**Cliff**_

"Have you seen the news?" Sam asked as soon as I stepped into Ben's apartment.

I dropped my backpack on the chair and replied, "Yeah, I've already seen it-"

"Seen what?" Ruby asked, zipping in beside us. There were no rose petals, but damn, even without her semblance she was fast.

"We found Yang."

Ruby's eyes lit up, and I would feel terrible if I had to break the news to her. "Really? Can I see her?"

Thankfully, Sam did it for me. "No, like, we know where she is. Probably."

"Oh." Ruby replied sadly. Then, more excited, she asked, "When are we going to go get her?"

Sam and I shared a look. He told her, "Get Blake and Weiss. This is not going to be a fun conversation."

"Uh oh," she muttered before zipping away.

About thirty seconds later, Ruby returned with Weiss and Blake in tow. Even though they were wearing local fashions, they still retained the same colour schemes. Red for Ruby, white for Weiss, and black for Blake. We all squished into the eating area and crowded around Sam's laptop.

"So, have you been following the news within the-" I checked my watch- "past few hours?"

Weiss shook her head. "We just finished watching a movie. It was terrible."

"Come on, it was awesome!" Ruby objected. "There were all these fights and they were all like- pshew bzzt thwack bzzt pshaw!"

"Which movie?" I asked, curious.

"Star Wars," Blake replied, sounding bored. "The fourth one, actually."

"Ah," I acknowledged.

"Okay, everyone, settle in," Sam ordered, starting the failed ISIS propaganda video.

"That's Yang!" Ruby shouted about five seconds in.

"Just keep watching."

Jihadi John told Yang to read the script and she refused. Then he tried again, and she refused again. Then he threatened her with the knife against her throat, and she punched him in the face with Ember Celica. I've seen YouTube videos of buckshot hitting watermelons and pieces of pig at point blank, and that was pretty much what it looked like, except it was a human head. And then she proceeded to murderize the shit out of the other ISIS thugs.

"Wow, Earth humans are really squishy," Ruby muttered. That was... actually kind of uncharacteristic of her.

The video quality was bad, and the audio wasn't much better. It gave the whole thing an eerie, detached feeling. Maybe it was just me guessing, but it looked like Yang was actually shocked by the fact that she was blowing chunks out of the people she was hitting.

"The Bride?" Ruby asked, confused. I guess she finally noticed the title.

"It's a reference to Kill Bill," I explained. "Journalists applying inaccurate labels."

On screen, Yang murderized another pair of ISIS fighters. Then the camera was knocked over and the video ended.

"Where is the video from?" Weiss asked, keeping her voice flat.

I looked at Sam. Sam looked at Isaac. Isaac looked at Jen. Jen looked at Ben. Ben frowned. We all looked at Ben.

Ben backed away. "What? News is boring, I don't watch the news."

"Really, Ben, really?" I sighed. "It's from Syria. Probably outside Raqqa, the capital of the so-called Islamic State."

"Syria?" Blake frowned. "Isn't there a war there?"

"Yeah, there's a war there," I replied plainly.

"Is there always war here?" Ruby asked sadly.

"Pretty much, yeah," I replied. Seeing her skeptical look, I added, "Seven billion people, remember? Earth is _big_."

"Why?" I wasn't sure if her question was general or specific.

"This started a few years ago, back in 2011," I explained, deciding to go with _specific_. "Well, actually, the causes are a lot older, but basically a lot of people in Syria lost their shit at their government. Eventually they overthrew it, but it left a ruined country with a big power vacuum-"

"A what?"

Weiss answered Ruby's question. "A situation in which there is no authority clearly in control and several groups or individuals are fighting for it."

"Oh, okay."

I continued, "Anyway, it's a mess, and then earlier this year, one group starts to dominate. It's called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS for short, or now it's just IS for Islamic State. In the past couple of months they've captured a lot of territory, cities in Iraq and Syria. They pushed out the Iraqi Army in northern Iraq and overran what was left of the Syrian government forces.

"These guys are completely batshit crazy. They're hardline Islamic fundamentalists, and they only approve of their own very strict implementation of Islam. They like to torture and behead people who step out of line. Now they've proclaimed their own Caliphate- kind of an empire."

"If they're so bad, why don't you fight them?" Ruby asked, still the idealist.

"We are, sort of," Sam pointed out. "Western countries don't want to get involved in that part of the world again- remember what I said about Iraq and Afghanistan? So we're training groups to fight ISIS and supporting them with airstrikes."

"So, how bad is it?" Blake asked.

"Like Cliff said, they kill everyone who steps out of line. They hate America, they hate the West, they probably wanted to execute Yang just for looking white. They'd probably kill us if they saw us."

"They can _try_," Blake muttered.

"We have to get Yang out of there before she gets hurt," Ruby said resolutely.

I sighed deeply, rubbing my temples. "Unfortunately, it's not that easy. She is in the middle of an _extremely_ violent warzone."

"You got Weiss out of Donetsk," she pointed out.

"No, we got Weiss out of Kyiv," Sam corrected. "We got lucky that time. Someone else got Weiss out of Donetsk. And Donetsk, even at the time, was nothing compared to what Syria looks like now."

"But what about Yang?"

"We can't just leave her there!" Weiss glared at me. "We can fight, you know."

It's not like I wasn't frustrated by the situation too. I snapped, "It's not that simple! There are other problems! It's a fucking warzone! We can't even get into it, let alone go through it! What can we do?"

"Actually, I might have an idea," Sam interrupted.

"Reveal it to us, glorious leader," I snarked, too worn out to hold back.

"You know how in Slumdog Millionaire, the Indian kid gets some lifelines in the game show?" Sam asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, but I don't see how that helps us."

"We're going to use one of those lifelines. Phone a friend."

"We're all here," Isaac pointed out.

"I meant one of my other friends."

Isaac glared at him, looking betrayed. "You have other friends?"

"Yes, Isaac, I have other friends. Including one who might be able to save Yang."

* * *

There are quite a few reviews, so I'm only replying if I can manage some kind of cohesive response. Some of your questions and predictions were probably answered in this chapter itself.

onerustybucket: Fighting prowess can only get you so far and logistics are always a problem. But you're not wrong.

Jacob Rickshaw: If it's the one I saw, it's near Kobane on the Turkey/Syria border and it's an airstrike. But I'm not sure if it's the same video, because the one I saw is a lot shorter.

Happy1K1nob1: That technique doesn't usually work out for me. Often I end up with a very bad fic as a result. And I haven't read it yet, sorry. Been to busy writing this and doing various assignments.

Ultimate Warrior of Zera: Movie night is coming as an Aside eventually. I'm having trouble deciding on a movie, especially since I want it to be movie night in a theater.

Guest: Unless it's rejected as an outright hoax, of course.

FallenDark: I don't know what that is, sorry.

mastermind: Who? Remnans have more variation than Terrans and a broader range of potential eye and hair colors, as well as less visible differences, but for the most part we're the same.

Guest: My thinking is that a semester at Beacon as part of Team RWBY would have pushed down those tendencies a bit. Remnans versus Terrans, well, individually we're weak but there are a lot more of us (several orders of magnitude by most estimates). We have a lot more resources and a massive industrial capacity and huge military forces, as well as weapons systems that are designed for a totally different type of warfare. As for what's actually going to happen, well, that will be revealed in time. And welcome to dirt? That's drawn from some sci-fi with a line something like, "Why would you call your planet dirt?", so I can hardly claim that idea as my own.

animal56: I was surprised how uncommon the inverted SI was when I started writing this. I've seen only two that would sort of qualify (one RWBY and one Mass Effect) and one that qualifies (Mass Effect), and none were really pure like I'm trying to do this one. As for ISIS, they were actually nice enough to cut out most of the beheading, which surprised me. But still, ugh. I'm not rewatching them, that's for sure.


	32. Need Some Help

Joe does not correspond to any of my actual friends. He's based on a few of the military folks I've met over the years. Yeah, some of them are that casual.

Anyway, things are getting more complicated by the minute.

* * *

_**32: Need Some Help**_

_**Joe**_

More shitty news from Syria. Yeah, it was shitty for everyone, but it was particularly shitty for me. Too close to home, I guess. I'd actually visited Syria before Arab Spring. Horrid regime, but great people, and a really interesting place. And of course there was the ten fucking years we spent in Afghanistan, a few of them me personally, that went to nothing. And now they were doing pretty much the same goddamn thing.

Disgusted, I closed the tab.

What I was trying to get done was just about as far away from that as possible. An essay on the social behaviour of early hominids. Back when the largest group was an extended family and the best way to kill your fellow man was a heavy rock. I bet they still managed to-

My phone rang, and I popped it out of the cradle. "Hello?"

"Yeah, Joe, it's Sam," a familiar-ish voice replied. He sounded pretty damn concerned.

Right, that Sam. The kid going into engineering. We'd had a couple classes together, and we'd started talking. We had some interesting conversations, and though we weren't great friends, I liked the kid. I think he had some potential.

There was an audible sigh at the other end. "I need your help."

"What kind of help?" Girl problems? Daddy issues? Some other coming of age shit?

"I need you to help me get someone out of Syria."

Did he just say what I thought he said? "Say again?"

"I said I need you to help me get someone out of Syria."

"You want to fucking what?" I repeated.

"This is important," he said. _Well, no shit, would you be calling me if it wasn't?_ "She could be in trouble.

I chuckled. "Who is she? Your girlfriend?"

He replied deadpan. "My friend's sister."

"Your friend's sister? What's so special about her?" Either he was pulling my leg, in which case this would be a rebuttal, or he was serious, in which case he would tell me more. Or something like that.

"Do you know who The Bride is?" he asked, tone still deadpan.

Who didn't? Amused, I asked, "Kill Bill or Kill Hajji?"

"What?" I guess he didn't understand that. "The one on the news!"

I laughed. "And you know her sister? Is she hot?"

"She's _fifteen_. And right now she's staring at me with puppy dog eyes and she really wants to get her sister-"

I cut him off. "You can't be serious. You know how absurd this sounds, right?"

"Remember when you told me about the guy who got impaled by another guy's jaw and I said it was bullshit and you showed me pictures?"

"Ah, I got you." Shit, either he wasn't bullshitting or he completely lost it. "You still living on campus?"

"Yeah, but I'm at Ben's place right now."

"Where's that?" I asked, grabbing the closest pen and piece of paper. I knew who Ben was but not where he lived.

"I'm texting you the address right now."

My phone vibrated and I checked the message. It actually wasn't too far from here.

"I'll be there in ten," I replied before hanging up.

There was no way that anthropology assignment was getting done. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.

* * *

_**Sam**_

"Damn it to hell, when's he going to show up?" Cliff fumed.

I leaned back in the chair, feeling it bump against the wall. "Soon."

"It's after midnight already," Cliff complained, pointedly checking his watch. "I guess I'm going to be sleeping in class again."

"Well, this is what happens when-" I stopped when I heard the loud banging on the door.

"I'll get it!" Ruby said excitedly, zipping to the door and tossing it open in a way that probably wasn't good for the hinges.

Casually, a man in jeans and a leather jacket stepped through the door. I watched as Joe surveyed the apartment. He was still a big, intimidating guy with a contrasting friendly face and stubble that just wouldn't go away.

"Hey, Joe," I greeted, turning but not moving, because there was a Weiss in the way. "You've met Cliff and Isaac and Ben and Jen before. The girl standing in front of you is the one I was talking about-"

"I'm Ruby!"

"The alleged sister?" he asked, brusquely but without malice.

"That's right," I replied. I motioned to Blake and Weiss. "These are Ruby's friends, Blake and Weiss."

"Black and white. Huh." Joe nodded to the girls. "I'm Joe Stevenson, formerly Corporal Joe Stevenson, formerly of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry."

"You were in the army?" Ruby asked.

"That's right." He nodded. "I joined up after high school, went into infantry, went to Afghanistan, then got blown an IED, medically discharged and ended up going back to school."

"IED?"

"Roadside bomb," he replied casually. "Blew the shit out of our vehicle, turned the guy beside me into a nice paste."

"Oh..." Ruby obviously wasn't sure what to say.

"Thanks, I wasn't done eating for today," Cliff muttered, sickened.

"Eh." Joe shrugged, sitting down on Weiss' bed and eliciting a glare from her which he ignored. "So, let's get down to business, shall we?"

"The Bride," Cliff redundantly reminded him.

"You're actually serious about that, aren't you?" Joe asked.

"Yeah!" Ruby shouted.

"Yes," I confirmed.

He took a deep breath. "Okay, look. I didn't really come here to offer assistance. I came here to get it through your thick skulls how fucking crazy you are even considering this as an option-"

"If you won't help us, I'm going to take my team and we're going to get her ourselves," Ruby said boldly, puffing out her chest. Even with her voice, it was still pretty impressive.

"You wouldn't be able to get on the plane," Cliff muttered.

"Kid, ISIS-held Syria isn't Vancouver, or even Detroit," Joe replied seriously. "You'd be killed. With _absolute_ certainty. This is a place where they stone people to death for looking at each other the wrong way. They hate foreigners, they hate Americans- most won't know or care about the difference- and they hate women."

Ruby had this horrified impression on her face, Weiss looked unimpressed, and Blake, well, I couldn't see what expression she had from where I was sitting. In an attempt to lighten things up, Joe asked, "You three play sports together?"

"Something like that," Blake replied smoothly.

"What do you play?"

"Tournament combat," Weiss replied. "Armed tournament combat."

"Funny," Joe replied, unaware that Weiss was actually being pretty much honest. "Okay, look, let me lay this out. You want to extract a high value individual who is actively engaging the enemy forces, with a team of one former infantry soldier and an untrained civilian, whatever intelligence you can scrape off the Internet, and literally no support. I'm being generous and assuming you actually have confirmation of her location, which you have not demonstrated. This is a pretty serious op you want carried out."

"You've done it before?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I've done it before," he replied irreverently.

"Where?"

"Call of Duty," he deadpanned, sighing. "What you're asking for is something JTF2 might do with the proper intelligence, a week of planning, and probably coordination from allied assets."

"But people have rescued their kids from being ISIS fighters," Isaac pointed out. "It's not that different, is it?"

"Actually, it's a lot different," Joe explained, exasperated. "Those fighters weren't actively engaging ISIS. Everyone involved was male- that matters a lot over there- and if you would have looked it up you'd know they failed in the end anyway."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"Have you tried asking for consular assistance, something like that?" Joe asked. "They probably won't be able to do anything, but you should try."

Cliff pointed out, "Uh, technically Yang- that's The Bride's name- is a stateless individual."

"Then you're screwed, but you never know."

"Joe, can we talk for a minute?" I asked.

"Sure." I led him to a semi-secluded part of the apartment, which was also the server room. The fans whirred in the background. Maybe they'd drown out our voices.

"Look, I wouldn't be asking for this if I had any other choice," I told him, subtly glancing at the sad Ruby being comforted by Weiss and Blake.

"I want to help, I really do," Joe replied. "Before you ask, yeah, I get that this is real, I believe you. But you're asking way too much from me. It's not like an action movie. Rescues like this require the right people, a lot of resources, planning, intelligence. This is something a nation-state might carry out with all their assets."

"Look at her. She's fifteen. Her parents are both gone." Which wasn't untrue. I felt a mix of emotions ranging from shared sadness to feeling like a manipulative dick. I didn't really do the emotional appeal stuff often. "Yang's all she's got left."

Joe sighed. "Okay, look. I can take you across the border into the friendly part of Syria, maybe make contact with the Kurds or the government, and if she makes it out of ISIS territory we can get her out. But she's gonna have to find her own way out of Raqqa, and even if she does we probably won't find her. And you're going to have to foot the bill."

"Thanks, man." We stepped back into the main room.

"Did you convince him?" Ruby asked, somewhat awkwardly.

"Yeah, sort of."

"I've got to set some things up," Joe told us. "Get the money and meet me at Chilliwack tomorrow."

"I owe you," I told him again.

Before he could respond, Ruby zipped across the room and enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Ruby!" I admonished. Embarassed, she let go.

"It's okay... actually, holy shit she hugs hard," Joe replied, surprised. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

* * *

_**Yang Xiao Long**_

I was in a state of shock after what had happened. I had expected a fight, not a slaughter. It had been so easy, and so bloody and messy it actually shocked me.

I was probably quite the sight, a warrior coated in the blood of her enemies. More like a girl with anger management issues that didn't expect people to explode when she punched them. I didn't even _realize_ people had that much blood. Were their Auras that weak, or were they not unlocked?

What was going on? Where was I? Why did those men attack me? Why did I let them? I needed answers, and heading back to the city was probably bet. I couldn't figure out how to get the truck working, but it wasn't far to walk.

A few rough-looking men, armed with rifles, had set up a checkpoint along the road just outside the city. The fortification looked flimsy, with only some sandbags and pieces of metal, so I guess it was for humans and not Grimm. But the men looked serious. One of them shouted something at me in a language I didn't recognize, waving his gun around.

"Hey, I'm a bit lost," I called as I approached. My tone was cheerful and a bit flirty, even though I was far from either. "Could you tell me where the closest phone is?"

He raised his rifle and shouted something at me which I couldn't understand. Judging by the way he was waving his rifle and the tone of his voice, I got the impression it wasn't very nice.

I flicked my wrists, cocking Ember Celica. "No? Well, that's disappointing..."

* * *

Review replies.

Sgt. Sporky: Ballistic fists are pretty common in fiction, but the closest thing I've found in real life is the Sedgley OSS .38 glove pistol, which was only used once or twice. And yes, Yang is good, but she's not perfect, and there's only one of her.

Happy1K1nob1: I started reading this morning but I had to do actual work so I only got a paragraph in. I want a movie that I know well enough to have a commentary on and would be well known enough to have them reasonably watch it. And then I have to actually write it, and I'm drawing a total blank. But the movie chapter is shelved until after Stolen Flame... I know.

mastermind: There will be no Terran-Remnan war in Emergence. As for law enforcement on Earth, while probably more competent, they aren't really equipped or trained to deal with those kinds of threats.

FallenDark: I don't watch anime (or much of anything these days). The Mass Effect Reverse SI is called "Welcome to Earth, 2013" and it's written by bronzedamazon. It does eventually turn into a normal SI but not until the sequel. Music and civil rights reactions are planned, but probably won't appear until after Stolen Flame.

some guy: I'm getting there, but governments are not evil so we won't be seeing any capture and put in lab action. Remnans have better technology in general, but Terrans often make more practical use of it. More speculation later. The Holocaust? Well, there'll be a discussion about the whole ethnic cleansing and genocide issue later, when I get around to writing it.


	33. Operational Considerations

Late and rushed, I know. I really don't like the overall tone of this chapter, but your mileage may vary.

My plan is maybe not the best but I'm sticking to it. This chapter took way too long to write, but I think the next one will be faster. Also, I was lazy and didn't look up what ASU Chilliwack actually looks like, so there's potential for a lot of inaccuracy there.

Fun fact: I have never fired an actual firearm.

* * *

_**33: Operational Considerations**_

_**Sam**_

We met Joe at a fairly large, completely empty training area. When we drove up to the gate of ASU Chilliwack, we had an interesting exchange with the guard.

"Are you Samuel Georgeas?"

"Yeah."

"Go on through. Follow the signs to the infantry training area."

"Thanks."

"I never let you in. I may owe that bastard, but I don't want to get court-martialed."

After that, it was an easy drive to the training area. The base guards were usually pretty casual anyway as long as you didn't try to force your way into a restricted area.

Joe was already there, in a set of combat fatigues. He looked surprised when he saw us step out of the car. "Just you two?"

"Yep."

"Nobody wants to go to Syria, huh," Joe replied lightly.

"Nope, just me and Ruby," I replied. Technically, I didn't want to go at all, but someone had to. And technically, Weiss and Blake also wanted to go, but Weiss had already travelled once on a forged passport and Blake had cat ears.

Speaking of which, we were still waiting on the money and Ruby's passport. I'd sent an email the night before, and they said they'd see what they could do. I hoped that by the time we got what we needed it wouldn't be too late.

Joe facepalmed. "You want to bring a fifteen year old girl into a Muslim country that's at war? Are you _fucking __insane_?"

"She's the difference between The Bride recognizing us as friendly and caving our skulls in," I pointed out. "Besides, she can handle herself."

"I don't think you understand how screwed up Syria is right now," Joe stated, both to me and Ruby.

He turned to the girl. "Syria is at war. There's constant fighting, with people getting shot and bombed all the time. ISIS murders everyone who doesn't fit into their hardline Islamic ideal- brutally. This place is a hellhole like you've never imagined. It's... I can't even describe it and I've been to _Afghanistan_."

Ruby was predictably obstinate, though I could see the wheels turning in her head. "It's my sister. She'd do it for me."

"You may die, or worse, and they're not going to take too kindly to-"

"I have to do this."

"All right," Joe allowed, seeing that she wouldn't back down. He gave me a look that I couldn't interpret. "We can try. That makes four, then."

"Four?" I asked.

"Frenchie, one of my buddies from the sandbox. I need _someone_ to watch my back." He paused. "Provided you get the money."

"Working on it."

"Look, I don't know who your source is, but get it as soon as you can."

I asked, "So, what are we here for?"

"Training?" he replied simply.

"What kind of training?" Ruby asked immediately.

"What I'm giving you is a crash course on surviving in a warzone," Joe explained. "I'm not qualified for this, and I'm probably going to teach you the wrong stuff. Generally, journalists and people like that will spend thousands on specialized courses that take weeks."

He sighed. "But we don't have that kind of time if we want your batshit crazy plan to succeed. I want to see if you can move, and I'm gonna show you how to get out of danger, and that's all I can do."

"Hopefully, you won't need it," he finished. "We're not gonna go into the really bad parts of the country. But those parts might come to us."

He led us over to a familiar sight. "This is the obstacle course. I'm sure you've seen a carciture in shitloads of movies and shooters. It's pretty useless for us, but I want to see if you're at least half-assed fit."

He turned to Ruby. "You might not be able to do some of the parts. Try, and tell me what you couldn't do."

She looked at the course. "It doesn't look that hard."

"You'll have a different opinion once you've gone through it," Joe told her. "All right, nothing formal, let's just do it."

He immediately sped off, and Ruby caught up right away. I sighed and followed them in.

I was actually surprised by how similar it was to the stereotypical obstacle courses you'd see in, say, Call of Duty.

The first obstacles was a bunch of tires. I started hopping between them before realizing that I was actually supposed to zip over top.

The next part was a wall I had to scale and then drop down the other side. It wasn't too tall, maybe a little more than my height. I was halfway through climbing up when Joe shouted, "DOWN!"

It was followed by a very loud bang and me letting go and falling onto the grass.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" I shouted, half deaf and in pain from falling off the wall.

"...about the obstacle course," I heard Joe's voice say, although I could barely tell it was him. "And next time, duck."

"What?" I asked.

He shouted clarification. "Keep going, keep focusing on making it through the obstacles, and when I say drop, _drop_."

I dragged myself up and over the obstacle, heading to the next one, when I heard, "Get down!"

I dropped to the ground behind the wall and covered my ears. No bang. "What the-"

Then there was a bang. "THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

"Don't get out of cover just because there's no bang," Joe shouted from a few obstacles away. "Also, little red is a lot better at this than you."

"GOD DAMN IT!" I shouted, partly out of rage but mostly out of pain.

I swear Joe was just screwing with me, because I managed to get through the rest of the damn course without any interruptions. Ruby was already there, waiting beside him.

"I wasn't expecting the girl to beat you. Were you running in a serpentine fashion?" he quipped.

I glared what I hoped were daggers at him.

He laughed before turning serious. "But seriously, don't run in a serpentine fashion. It's stupid and will get you killed."

We walked over toward the nearby firing range. He exchanged a few words with a serious-looking range safety officer and then waved us onto the deserted firing range.

"Now, everyone loves guns, but this is the worst case scenario," Joe explained, inspecting an M16. "If you have to fight we're probably already dead. Two slightly-trained civilians and one medically discharged infantryman versus who knows how many jihadis."

Technically, one scared-as-hell civilian, one deceptively cute huntress-in-training, and one badass ex-soldier. But I wasn't about to correct him.

"With that being said, don't be a Jessica Lynch," he said, putting down the rifle. "A slim chance is better than none. So if it comes to this, shoot the bastards and hope like hell someone saves our asses."

"Lovely," I deadpanned. Ruby muttered something about her beloved.

"You first, Sam," Joe said, handing me the rifle. I immediately checked the chamber. Empty. He handed me a loaded magazine. "Let's see if you can still shoot."

I pushed the magazine into the bottom of the rifle and pulled back the charging handle before letting it slam forward. Keeping my finger off the trigger, I shouldered the weapon and flipped the safety off. I lined up the sights and squeezed off a shot at the near target. It was a satisfying feeling, and it didn't take me long to go through the whole magazine.

My groups could be described as "minute of bad guy" at best. There were three targets at various ranges, and they were all peppered with holes.

"Well, we're dead anyway," Joe deadpanned. It had been a while. He took the rifle and checked it again.

"You ever fired a gun before, Ruby?"

"Yes," she replied instantly.

"Okay, this is a C7 rifle," Joe explained, showing her the weapon. "Selector is here, it's safe-semi-auto. Charging handle is here, mag release pushes in like a pistol. The bolt should hold open and the release is here. Don't worry about the forward assist."

He handed the rifle over. "This isn't what you'd pick up in Syria. You'd probably be using an AK of some kind, but I couldn't get access to one on such short notice."

"Safety should be near your thumb... uh, forefinger for you. Rotate it down to semi." he corrected as Ruby shouldered the weapon to her left shoulder. "You're a lefty. Careful of the brass in your face."

"What?" She turned and immediately swept us with the muzzle, finger on the trigger.

"Jesus Christ!" Joe shouted, pushing the barrel of the rifle back toward the target. "Don't sweep your friendlies and keep your finger off the trigger until it's pointed at what you want to shoot. It does happen on the battlefield but for the love of god try not to do it on purpose."

"Sorry," Ruby apologized sheepishly.

"Just... try to be careful," Joe said. "Okay, aim your weapon downrange. You've got thirty rounds in the mag. There's targets at fifty, a hundred, and two hundred yards. Try to get ten rounds on each."

"That's not bad," Joe told her. It was certainly better than my dismal showing. He handed her another pair of magazines. "Okay, here's two more magazine with thirty each. Put it on full and dump both magazines in it as fast as you can."

That was just for fun and you could tell, but she still managed to get most of the rounds to hit.

"Ready for something harder?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, I'm going to call out targets. The closest one is one, the middle one is two, and the far one is three. When I call a target, I want you to put three rounds into it as fast as you can."

She expertly slammed the magazine in and racked the charging handle before shouldering the rifle.

"One!" Bang bang bang.

"Two!" Another three taps. Followed by more shouting and more groups. I knew Ruby could shoot Crescent Rose, but I didn't realize it would translate that easily. I mean, she wasn't great, but she was a hell of a lot better than I was, and I'd actually fired the M16 and its cousins before.

"That's not bad," Joe allowed. I think her groups were actually better than the last round, but it was hard to tell because we hadn't bothered changing the targets between rounds.

Ruby was grinning when she put the rifle down. "That was fun!"

Joe grinned. "I've yet to meet anyone who didn't enjoy shooting."

His smile faltered. "Then again, if you have to use this in the field, it's not so fun anymore. And in our case, well..."

He took the rifle back and handed it to the RSO, who merely grunted in response. "Unfortunately that's about it for the fun part. Let's head back to your buddy's apartment, then we can talk about making a plan, language, culture, and all the shit we need to even remotely have a chance of pulling this off."

* * *

_**Joe**_

A pair of large boxes were waiting for us when we got to Ben's apartment.

"Holy shit, they delivered," Sam breathed from beside me.

"These arrived about an hour ago," Ben told us. "They're really heavy. I got the girls to carry them in."

What a _dick_.

"Planning first, or-"

"I want to see what we've got to work with first," I answered.

Little Red grabbed the smaller of the two boxes and effortlessly dropped it onto the table. Okay, so I guess they weren't that heavy.

On top were several envelopes, which Sam pulled out and arrayed across the table. They weren't sealed, and we dumped out the contents. Which was cash of various forms, cheques, credit cards...

Holy shit. Who the hell did they ask? The mafia? The CIA? I was pretty sure real life didn't work that way.

I thought I saw a set of passports, but the Snow White (it's the hair) quickly grabbed them before I could get a good look.

The rest of the box was less exciting. It was a lot of fabric wrapped in plastic.

"Clothes for the trip?" Sam asked, holding one of them up.

I looked at it. "That's a backpack... wait, no, there's clothes in there too."

The next box had electronics on top. I saw four Thuraya satellite phones and a bunch of Motorola radios. We carefully pulled them out. Underneath was a first aid kit and two bags unhelpfully labelled "sundries".

As I found out the hard way, the definition of "sundry" varied wildly from one person to the next. Little Red pulled out the items and I got a good look at what was underneath.

"Body armor?" I asked, holding up one of the vests. These were high quality commercial products, American made by the look of it. Curious, I pulled one of the bubble wrapped packages wedged in beside it. The label read _Lightweight SAPI_. By my guess, there were plates for all seven vests. "Jesus man, this is good shit. You're probably sitting on several grand worth here."

"Yeah..."

This was all very expensive, and not the kind of stuff you just give away. I pointed that out. "Whoever sent this shit has deep pockets, man. Do I want to know who it is?"

"Probably not," Sam replied.

That wasn't really a good thing to hear. That's the kind of shit you say when you owe the mob a favour. Still, we needed the help, and I wasn't going to ask any more questions.

I mentally kicked myself again for agreeing to do the motherfucking impossible. Why-

My phone buzzed, interrupting my thoughts. I read the message that just came in.

"God damn it," I muttered. "You've got to be kidding me."

"What is it?"

I tossed the phone onto the table. "Frenchie just bailed. We're not going anywhere."

"What?"

I sighed. "Okay, look, I wasn't too keen on doing this in the first place. What you're asking for is the impossible. Really, you need a well supported team. Having one war buddy with me and it's still lunacy. Alone, well, it's insane. In fact, it's fucking insane period. I never should have agreed to do this in the first place. I'm sorry I have to bail, but we were crazy to even think about it."

"But what about Yang?" Little Red asked, holding back tears. That was her name? I thought she was _white_.

"Look, hopefully someone friendly will pull her out, or she'll find her own way out," I told them, although I think we all knew that the chances of that were slim to none.

"We can't let that happen," Cliff blurted out.

"Why not?"

"Because... because it won't work." Well that's ducking the question if I've ever heard it.

"Is there something you aren't telling me?" My eyes darted from them to the girls. I scanned them carefully; I was checking them out in a sense, but not to see if they were hot or not. "There's something you aren't telling me, isn't there?"

"Yeah," Sam admitted grudgingly. "Do you want a beer? This is going to be a bit of a shocker."

* * *

Very Belated Review Replies...

linkthetoaoftime: The problem is that Yang can't keep going forever. She's in a strange land seeing unspeakable horrors. She's only human, even if she is Remnan. She'll inevitably make a mistake, get tired, get outnumbered.

Sgt. Sporky: We probably won't see a lot more of the Canadian Forces until much later. As for trust... yeah. Anyone we send is going to look the same to her, and maybe not distinct enough from an ISIS fighter.

Happy1K1nob1: The Asides are meant to be more spontaneous, but I just haven't had a lot of inspiration or time. Also, no idea, so... African or European?

Reine de la Mort: I'm going to have to disagree with you philosophically. To me, a story is entertainment, but it's also an exploration of an idea or ideas. To me it's still escapism to a degree but it's also still a reflection of reality. Sometimes that's on a fairly abstract, analogous, or allegorical level, but sometimes it's pretty direct. Whatever it is, good fiction is applicable. I write with that in mind. With this story especially, I'm trying to write something that although it may be way out there, stays grounded in reality and deals with real issues. Is actually blurring the line between fiction and reality too much? I say no, you say yes.

some guy: Which pairings, then? I haven't really thought about it much, but I've made it clear that this isn't a ship fic and any romance will be tangential to the plot. Also, highly disagree on not wanting to return. From our perspective, they're characters who somehow came out of a fake world. From their perspective, they've arrived into a strange new world where everyone thinks that everything they've ever known is false. The question of what is reality really starts to come into play here, but it's not something I've really explored yet.


	34. Operation Firestorm

This chapter came together better. The dialogue is not the best but the tone is much more like what I was aiming for.

To clarify: A toque refers to a knit cap (sometimes called a beanie). This is a regional variation I wasn't aware of until very recently.

Warning: Atrocities ahead, but you probably already know that.

* * *

_**34: Operation Firestorm**_

_**Sam**_

"I don't have any beer," Ben reminded me.

"What? Why?"

He shrugged. "I don't really drink."

"It's fine," Joe said, waving us off. "I have a feeling we're gonna need something harder after this anyway."

I sighed. "You'd be right. Joe, have you ever heard of a show called RWBY? Spelled with a W?"

"No. Sounds like some shitty kids cartoon. Why?"

I shook my head. "It's not a shitty kids cartoon, it's- Isaac, how would you describe RWBY?"

"Kickass fight scenes." I glared at him, and he added, "An animesque web animation about students training to fight monsters."

"Still sounds pretty shitty," Joe said.

"The letters of the show stand for the main characters," I said, ignoring the jab, although on some levels I agreed with him. "Among other things. But, just go with that for a bit."

I pointed to the girls in sequence. "R for Ruby. W for Weiss. B for Blake."

Then, to nobody in particular. "And Y for Yang."

"So you're saying they're refugees from TV land?" Joe asked. He laughed. "All right, that's good. Pretty fucking hilarious, although it doesn't explain all the shit lying on the floor."

He sighed. "But honestly, whatever your actual plans are, I don't know if a joke like this is really a good idea. So in all seriousness, what the hell are you trying to accomplish here?"

"I'm dead serious, Joe," I told him. "Somehow, they all made the leap from- what did you call it, Cliff?"

"An alternate reality that just happens to exist as fiction in our home reality, a situation which is implausible but not impossible," he recited.

"Thank you." I continued, "We just happened upon Ruby in Vancouver a couple of months ago. Then we found Weiss in Donetsk-"

"Donetsk?"

"Technically, someone else got her out. We met her in Kiev and flew her home on a fake passport."

I continued without waiting for a response. "Blake was in Japan-"

"Bet she blended right in," Joe said sarcastically.

"Kind of. Actually caused some problems, but we met her, she sneaked onto a plane, flew here, and now we've got three quarters of the team. That was maybe two weeks ago."

"Come on, this is just not possible," Joe protested, though I could feel his defences start to crack.

"Yang is the last one. We figured she'd arrive eventually, but we didn't know where. We were hoping it wouldn't be, well, you know..."

"Okay, let's assume this crazy story is the truth," Joe allowed before challenging, "Prove it."

"People from Remnant- that's where the show is set- are faster, stronger, and tougher than we are," I pointed out. "Ruby beat me in the obstacle course."

"That was a bit surprising, but you're not exactly the most fit guy in the world, no offence. Hardly proof of alternate realities."

"What about this?" Weiss interrupted. She held out a hand, forming a glyph in the air for several seconds before dissipating.

"And this!" Ruby added, zipping across the room with her Semblance.

Blake said quietly, "I'm a Faunus."

"A what?"

She pulled the toque off her head, revealing the familiar cat ears. "A cat Faunus, specifically."

"That's not another word for a furry, is it?" Joe half-asked, half-stated.

"No. These are part of my biology."

"You're not kidding, are you? Holy shit." Joe breathed.

Voice controlled, Joe asked, "What can they do?"

"That's your first question?" I blurted out, surprised. I was expecting something more philosophical or physics-related. Like "how can they be fiction yet be here" or "how did they get here" or something like that.

"I'm a soldier, Sam. I look at operational considerations, not strategic ones. There are a lot of questions on my mind, some philosophical and some practical, but the most important one right now is how we're gonna get Yang out of that hellhole. That hasn't changed, right?"

"No."

"Then everything else can wait."

"That's remarkably pragmatic of you," Weiss commented.

"A couple years in the sandbox will do that to you," he replied.

"I can go really fast," Ruby told him, eager to announce her abilities. "I'm also good with Crescent Rose, my scythe-rifle, and I killed a Nevermore-"

"That was a team effort," Weiss snapped. "As for myself, I can make glyphs which can act as platforms, shields, or immobilize enemies. That is my Semblance. If I had Myrtenaster and a supply of Dust, I could also use various special attacks."

"I have no idea what you just said," Joe admitted.

She sighed. "I can create temporary surfaces and kill things with a sword."

"Okay. What about you?" he asked, motioning toward Blake.

"My Semblance is a shadow clone- a sort of temporary, illusory copy of myself. My weapon of choice is Gambol Shroud, a combination sword, whip, and pistol, though I've used various weapons in the past."

"Huh. That's not really helpful. I mean, it's not useless, but I'm not sure what that means for us."

"You've seen what Yang can do," I simplified. "All of them are basically as good, although their techniques are similar."

"That's more useful. Bullet dodgers, too?"

"Bullet tankers. They have something called Aura. Something something manifestation of soul, but basically it's a shield."

"And average engagement range?"

"Up close and personal."

"So, why just Ruby?" Joe asked, changing the topic suddenly.

"I've travelled on a fake passport before," Weiss told him. "It might cause problems if it gets discovered."

Blake pointed to the toque now back on her head. "Cat ears."

He nodded. "Okay, so the concern is getting them in country. Both of those may or may not turn out to be problems. If they get discovered, it could take down the whole mission. Good thinking, but as long as they travel separately we should still be able to get through even if one of you gets caught, as long as they don't spill."

"Isn't that still risky?"

"Yes, but this whole thing is risky. I think it's a minor consideration, secondary to team size."

"Team size? Bigger isn't better?"

"Not necessarily. Option one is a smaller team. Just myself, you, and Ruby. We'll draw less attention and we can move quicker." He paused. "Also, unlike the other two, Ruby could probably pass as a boy from a distance."

Ruby looked very confused and a bit offended. "...what?"

"Sorry, kid, I'm not trying to be mean, and I'm not calling you a dyke. In baggy clothes, from a distance. And it could make a difference in an Islamic country."

"Weiss is flatter than Ruby," Isaac pointed out, and I facepalmed.

"Excuse me?" the heiress huffed, blushing.

"Weiss Reacts!" Isaac protested.

Joe shook his head. "The way she moves gives it away. Like a princess."

"It's heiress, actually," Weiss echoed. "Or it was before all this."

"Option two?" I asked, eager to get away from that topic.

"Full team. Red, White, and Black, plus you and me. It means we can deal with trouble better, but we're more likely to get into trouble, and that's something I'd rather avoid."

"You're the soldier, man," I reminded him. "What do you think?"

"I'd go with the small team," he said immediately. "We're still not going into ISIS territory- no fucking way. We're skirting around it, trying to make contact through intermediaries and meet The Bride- sorry, Yang- outside. We don't want to be too distinctive, we don't want to draw attention. Avoiding conflict is the name of the game. If we need to go somewhere dangerous, we'll get someone else to help us."

He paused. "If it weren't for the illegal travel issue, I'd suggest taking White and Black into Turkey with one of you and waiting as backup... but truth be told it's not worth it. Unless you can get a helicopter, we'll either be dead or out of the situation by the time you get there."

"So, just us three, still."

"Looks like that." Another pause. "Look, man, this is still fucking crazy, and Little Red Reaping Hood or not, this is still probably going to go south. Most likely, we'll die without ever meeting Yellow."

"We'll make it."

"I wish I had your confidence, kid," Joe sighed. "So, anyone got a name?"

"A name?" I asked, confused. "For what?"

"Every op needs a name. Preferably one that isn't pretentious or stupid. Awesome but unrelated to the mission is okay."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Operation Firestorm."

* * *

_**Yang Xiao Long**_

I was filthy, bloody, hungry, tired, confused, and generally not feeling so, well, not feeling so hot. I didn't even feel like making puns.

For what may have been the first time in my life, punching things didn't relieve the stress, just made it worse. Fighting targets was easy. Fighting Grimm was tense, but satisfying. Even the bad guys at the club were at least good opponents. But this... this was slaughter. This was feeling a head explode under my fist, feeling Ember Celica spray the remains everywhere. It was slightly fun once. After that, it was just sickening.

I destroyed the checkpoint, avoided one patrol, and obliterated another. It was a strange city. It was full of people, but it was a ghost town. I saw armed men who moved purposely- I avoided them. I saw unarmed men shuffling about, minding their own business. I saw people dressed in black things that completely covered them. I quickly learned to avoid everyone; either they ignored me or started shouting, probably for the police or whoever ran this dump. The whole place was dirty and dusty and there was rubble here and there. I could hear gunshots and and bombs going off in the distance.

I soon found myself in a small, drab store facing an alley. I saw there was nobody inside and started swiping bottled water, energy bars, and wet naps. Someone had left their backpack on the floor, and I shoved everything in there. I didn't feel good about doing it. I may not be as idealistic as Ruby, but I still didn't believe in stealing from innocent people.

I hope Ruby is okay, wherever she is. If she ended up here...

I turned to see one of the people in the black lampshades. I couldn't see the expression on their face through the veil covering it, which was too bad. I must have been quite the sight, covered in blood and sand but with my fab hair still shining through (it just does that). "Uh, um, sorry, but I really need this."

I did still have my scroll, but I didn't see anywhere I could actually pay. Before I could ask about it, she (definitely a she) let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, I'm sorry!" I shouted as she started screaming things in a language I couldn't comprehend. "I'm sorry!"

She bolted out of the store, still screaming. That was not good. That would bring in the patrols. Whoever they were. I knew they would shoot on sight, and that was bad enough.

The store had door to the back, and as soon as I saw it I rushed through it. I desperately searched for somewhere to hide, but what was probably once a stockroom was now completely empty. I resigned myself to watching through a crack in the door, tensing up for the inevitable fight.

A trio of armed men entered the store, guns raised. The woman was gesturing to the back room, saying something in the incomprehensible language. I could take them easy, but I just... didn't want to. Fatigue, I guess. Mental more than physical.

To my surprise, they didn't barge into the back right away. Instead, one of them hit the woman, and they started yelling at her, kicking and beating her. Didn't she just point me out to them? What was wrong with this place?

"Hey!" I shouted, kicking the door off its hinges. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

It was a terrible one-liner, but the best I could come up with under the circumstances. I slammed my fists together, cocking Ember Celica and reminding myself that I had already burned through two strips of ammo.

These guys were less surprised than the last group, which didn't surprise me. They must have heard of me by now. I punched from a distance with my left, sending a burst of fire into one of the men, which exploded his chest. Leaping over the counter, I grabbed one of the other men and slammed his head repeatedly into a shelf filled with cans, knocking them around and spreading mashed food and mashed

brains.

I felt his body jerk as the last fighter ruthlessly fired through him into me. I tossed the body forward- ugly, but it worked. That threw him off and I finished him with a fist through his skull and into the wall behind him.

Well, that was... _not_ fun.

The woman was on the floor, in a sorry state but still wearing that black thing. I offered my less bloody hand, and she shouted something at me, refusing to take it and wobbling to her feet. I grabbed her shoulder to steady her. "What were-"

"Stone!" she interrupted, finally managing understandable speech. She tried to pull away. "They stone us!"

"Over my dead body!" I shouted back, still hyped up from the fight.

She kept tugging. "Go away! Away!"

I sighed and let her go, running into the back room I had just left.

I needed to know more. That was easier said than done when it was shoot first, ask questions later, and nobody lived to answer questions.

I needed one of those psychos alive.

* * *

_**Joe**_

Normally I was pretty indifferent to flying. It was how you got from place to place, part of the travel process but secondary to what you were doing at either end. Sometimes I enjoyed it, sometimes I got through it. This was the first time I'd flown business class, and it should have been one of the best flights I'd ever had.

But when you were flying into an ill-advised mission, suddenly the flight got a hell of a lot worse.

I had learned to suppress the trepidation before, but it was different this time. I'd been out of the game for too long. It was no longer the routine the dance in the sandbox had once become. And this was never what I was trained to do, never what I thought I'd be doing.

The first thing I did was research. I'd downloaded the entirety of the RWBY show, and the trailers and some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. Ben gave me a copy of the wiki to look at on the plane. I went through it, and didn't get a lot of entertainment from it.

They were superhuman physically, but emotionally the same as any other high school students- although I knew that could change fast when shit really goes downhill. They fought monsters, did it close up, probably weren't used to the sheer brutality we saw on Earth.

It meshed with what Sam told me. They were good, but eventually Yang would wear out. And if we got in a fight, Ruby was powerful but immature and there was only one of her. And I doubt she was used to protecting fleshy meatbags like us.

The rest of the flight was telling them how to act in Syria, cultural and language stuff. There wasn't much to say, because I didn't know much to begin with. Last time it had been a much more pleasant visit, in a country that while not the best to tourists, didn't shoot them on sight.

Truth be told, though I had more confidence, I didn't have a lot more competence than the people I was trying to help. I'd been to Syria before, but that was before all this shit went down. I knew the customs and maybe a few people, but I'm not sure how much that would help us. I'd been a soldier, so I knew when to take cover and when to run, but that didn't know I meant how to run a complex retrieval op.

I knew we would have to get into Syria, and I knew we would have to try to draw Yang out and meet her outside the hot zone. I knew we would need to get help from the locals, but that was all I had to go on. In a country like Syria, with what little we knew, that would be nearly impossible.

They said never make a promise you can't keep, but I felt like I already had. For the first time in years, I didn't sleep on the plane.

* * *

Review replies.

Firehawk242: They didn't buy it, it was sent to them.

linkthetoaoftime: I think I've said this before, but making mistakes is kind of a theme in this story, along with trying to do stuff you have no idea how to do.

Ultimate Warrior of Zera: They didn't want to get laughed at out of the gate, and they've still got this delusion of secrecy being good going on.

Fourze: They emailed RT like every other time and the boxes arrived with labels stating they were from RT.

Sgt. Sporky: I think Ruby was stated to be left-handed; if not, she's ambidextrous. As for range safety, that's range safety on Earth. On Remnant, they probably spar with their weapons more than they fire them at targets, and they're constantly sweeping each other in combat. It's just not an issue like it is for us. It's a dangerous world, it's a dangerous job, they operate by different rules. They're a lot more casual about firearms overall. Sam didn't tell Joe that the package was from RT.

AnonymousReading: Because I haven't written that Aside yet. I'm also shying away from RT-related parts because I don't really known them well like some fans do and I don't feel I could even do an email justice.

Happy1K1nob1: The African or European thing is a reference to Monty Python.

Armyx: I'm still toying around with who else to put through, but not in Emergence.

crescentrosehvss: On one hand, they're quite different. On the other hand, the C7 is a lot more ergonomic. Still, Ruby seems to do mostly snap shots while swinging and planted firing at close range, not actual sniping.

LoneWolf218: Things get interesting indeed.

Guest: How so? I don't really understand what you're trying to say.


	35. Suicide Mission

And things are really starting to heat up.

* * *

_**35: Suicide Mission**_

_**Ruby Rose**_

The flight from Canada to Istanbul was kind of fun, but the flight to another place I couldn't pronounce was a lot less fun. I didn't understand why Weiss and Blake hated airplanes so much. They weren't as nice as airships but they were neat in their own way. There was security too which Sam was worried about but we didn't have any problems.

After landing in the place I couldn't pronounce, we took a small and stinky van to the border. It was a bumpy ride and I mostly kept quiet in the back. I noticed both Sam and Joe got more serious and not happy as we got closer to the border.

Then we got there and lined up for the crossing. I could sort of pronounce the name of this place. Mursitpinar. Over the hill we could see Kobane, which was in Syria. I could hear gunfire and there was an occasional explosion from over there.

There was almost nobody going through to Syria like we were, but there were lots of people going the other way, or trying to. Some of them were being put in holding pens like animals. It was sick and I asked Sam why they were doing that.

"Those are refugees from Syria," he explained. "They're running away from the war."

"But why do they put them in cages?" I asked.

Joe answered that. "Because they don't have anywhere else to put them."

Since there was no line we got to the front pretty quickly.

"Remember, let me do the talking," Joe reminded us before stepping up to the army guard. He said something in a language I couldn't understand.

"Thank you for trying, but your Arabic is bad and your Turkish is worse."

Joe laughed. "Sorry about that."

"Only the three of you?" the guard asked.

"That's right."

"May I see papers?" I couldn't see what, but I noticed Joe handed something else over with the papers.

"Hmm... what is purpose of your visit?"

"We're not fighters for either side, if that's what you're asking," Joe told him.

"Ah, yes, I think so, but with the war, you must have a good reason."

"We're trying to find my sister," I blurted out.

The man, who had a very stern face and was kind of scary, asked, "Your sister? What is she doing in Syria?"

"She was visiting and got stuck because of the war," I replied, remembering the half-true cover story.

"It is very dangerous," the guard told me. "For you and your sister. Do you know if she is still alive."

"She's still alive," I insisted. It couldn't be that bad.

"Then I let you through, but I can't guarantee you this will be open for you come back," the guard warned us. "Kobane is fighting now, it is very dangerous."

He waved us through. "Good luck. You will need it."

* * *

_**Yang Xiao Long**_

The city had a lot of alleys and a lot of rooftops. I was hardly a parkour expert, but I could do it if I had to. I raced across the city, looking for a target.

I needed to find a patrol and get the drop on them. I needed some questions answered. Nobody would talk to me so I needed to force the issue.

A group of three men carrying rifles and wearing the black mask things was walking down an alley, totally oblivious to the fact I was on the roof above them. It would work.

As they reached the end of the alley, I dropped down beside them. They turned too slowly. I drove my fist into the man on my right, driving him into the wall of the building.

The other two quickly backed away. One of them had his rifle up, so I grabbed it and jerked it out of his hands before hitting him in the face with it. I wasn't expecting to bury it in his forehead.

The third man was backing away from me. He fumbled with his weapon and dropped it, scrambling to pick it up again. Perfect.

I grabbed his rifle in one hand and him in the other, then tossed him into the alley. A length of rope fell off him as he flew, so I roughly tied him to a fire escape with it.

"Okay, here's how this is going to work," I announced as I tore the black mask from his head. "I ask questions, you answer them."

I flicked out Ember Celica again, "Or we can do this the hard way."

He spat at me in response. "Fuck you!"

I pushed him down. "Now, now, that's no way to treat a lady-"

He spat again, this time in my face. "American whore!"

I wiped it off and socked him in the ribs. I kept it relatively light, but I felt bone crumble under my fist. Despite all the bluster, he was a wimp.

"I will not tell you anything, you American bitch!" he spat at me, grimacing in pain from what were probably busted ribs. Ribs shouldn't break like that.

"You keep using that word. American. What's an American?"

He actually looked perplexed for a moment before the rage returned. He lashed against his bindings. "Fuck you, stupid bitch don't know her own country!"

"I'm from Vale." Actually from Patch, but I wasn't going to tell him that.

"You look like American whore!"

I decided to ignore it for the time being, though I really wanted to just smash his face in. "Where am I?"

"You are in the land of God!" It would have been poetic if it wasn't for the hate.

"Okay, but where on Remnant are we?"

I guess curiosity got the better of him. "Remnant? The fuck is Remnant?"

My response was probably a little more sarcastic than it should have been. "Oh, I don't know, the planet which we're living on?"

Another flash of confusion. "This Earth, you stupid bitch! Don't even know the name of your planet. Godless American education!"

"Earth? You expect me to believe that we're in a place called dirt?" I punched him in the shoulder, feeling it dislocate under my fist.

He screamed in pain and spat at me again.

This time, it landed on the one part of me that wasn't filthy and covered in blood. My fab hair flared, instantly burning off the offending substance. Instantly, I could feel the rage come as I poised to strike.

Then I saw the fear in his eyes, and I took another look at him. And then I realized he couldn't be any older than Ruby. His face was boyish and he didn't have much for facial hair. Fighting was one thing. If you could, you grew up faster than anyone wanted to. But he was too young for this brutality and hate.

"Why are you fighting?" I asked quietly, my hair extinguishing as fast as it ignited.

"I fight for God!" he shouted. "Why you fight? So you can be a whore?"

"Just tell me how to get out of here."

"Go North!" he shouted, defiant yet giving in. "Go North and fly back home to your godless country!"

"All I needed to know." Not really, but close enough. I turned and walked away.

* * *

_**Sam**_

"We're not going anywhere," Joe announced as we took cover behind a building.

I knew Syria was a warzone, but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. We were going to go from the border to the town square, but we abandoned that plan after gunfire erupted a block over. Right now we were trying to make our way to one of Joe's friends, but we were stopped by a firefight on the road we had to go down.

"No fucking shit!" I shouted, scared out of my mind. Here I was, not quite being shot at but pretty damn close. The soldier I understood, but almost pissing my pants beside a fifteen year old girl who was perfectly calm made me feel kind of castrated.

"We're going to have to take a detour," Joe stated.

"Again, no fucking shit, Sherlock!" Oh God, was the gunfire getting closer?

"Calm down, man. Just two more blocks. We're already in Kurdish territory, it should be safe enough."

If there was one thing I'd learned right away, it's that two blocks was a long way in a warzone.

Which, by the way, sucked. TV could show you the sights, but they can't get the sounds quite right, and they can't get the awful smell in there, and the atmosphere isn't the same either. There's this kind of fear and loathing and malaise that hangs over the world like a thick fog.

Joe stood up and motioned for me to follow, and we sprinted across the mostly empty street to the relative safety of a bombed-out store.

I thought I felt something whiz by my head. "Jesus Christ was that a-"

Joe shook his head. "It was just a rock chip, calm down. Follow my lead."

"You can do this, Sam!" Ruby assured me, mostly unfazed by the chaos.

"Let's go." We stood up and made another dash to an alley. Joe stopped in the middle of it, and I was about to ask what he was doing when he rapped three times on the door of a building. "Hey, Nigel, you in there?"

"Nigel?" I asked, confused and terrified about being trapped in an alley and rushed by armed thugs.

"He's British-" Joe said before the door opened, revealing a man who looked much more Arab than British. In fact, he kind of looked like Farid from Black Ops. "Hey, Nigel. This is Sam and Ruby."

"Pleasure to meet you, though my name's not actually Nigel," the man told us, though he seemed good-humoured about it. His accent was a mix of British and Arab. "Of course, since my actual name is rather difficult for you to pronounce, Nigel will do fine."

He waved us inside, shutting the deadbolts behind us. "I'd offer you tea, but we're fresh out."

Joe and him shared a laugh before embracing. "Been a long fucking time, man. How you holding up?"

"Not too bad, all things considered," Nigel replied, sitting down on a ratty couch and motioning for us to join. We were in what seemed like a living room, which was dimly lit and had windows that were boarded over. There was a small kitchen off to one side. "I still get the occasional package from home, believe it or not."

"You still with them?" Joe asked quietly.

"Yes, and my job is basically the same," he replied. "I watched the fighting under Assad, I watch the fighting now."

"What job? With who?" Ruby asked. "Why are you watching the fighting?"

"I'm a Syrian now, but I'm still loyal to Her Majesty," Nigel said vaguely. So he was a spy. Was he like James Bond or the Ryan guy in Cliff's shitty novels? There was a certain cool factor to sitting across from a spy.

Ruby, of course, was just confused.

"So, obviously you didn't come here on holiday," Nigel said, getting down to business.

"What makes you say that?" Joe asked lightly.

"Well, one would think the fighting would be a bit discouraging," Nigel quipped. "Joking aside, really, why did you come here?"

"We're looking for my sister," Ruby told him, pulling a few pictures out of a vest pocket and giving them to Nigel.

He took one look at them and frowned. "Your sister is The Bride?"

"Unfortunately," I told him.

"Well, I can tell you where she is," Nigel replied. "She's in Raqqa beating the piss out of those Islamic State wankers."

"Still?" I asked.

"Well, assuming she's real. I suspect the reports are exaggerated, but there is someone or something raising hell in Raqqa. And as far as I know, it's still happening. Rumours spread fast. In fact, she's become a bit of a minor legends among our comrades here."

Nigel paused. "You're sure that's your sister?"

"Yeah."

"And you think she's capable of doing that on her own."

"Nope. I _know_ she is."

"All right, then. Not the most insane thing I've seen here." He leaned back, the couch creaking beneath his weight. "The problem is I'm not sure if I can do anything. Raqqa is the heart of ISIS territory, and this is not extracting a reluctant ISIS fighter or random civilian. You want to extract an enemy of ISIS from the heard of their territory. That is sheer lunacy."

"I knew we should have brought Blake and Weiss," Ruby muttered. Nigel didn't seem to have heard.

"Despite what you may think," he said, turning to me and Ruby, "I am not James Bond. In fact, I'm not even a proper spy, and in any case the game is not played like it is in the movies."

He paused. "But I realize that your sister must be very important to you, and I will do my utmost to assist in bringing her back safely. Unfortunately, there is not much I can do."

He stood up. "You're welcome to stay the night here. It's reasonably safe. I will see what I can do before the morning."

"Thanks, man. You're a lifesaver."

Nigel smiled slightly. "Perhaps literally, in this case."

* * *

Review Replies

linkthetoaoftime: Maybe. I'm super busy right now and that's taking its toll on this story.

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Reine de la Mort: Uh... sure. Totally not because I wrote it at midnight.

up up and away: I had an idea that was really good that I really wanted to do, but I can't remember what it was. We'll see.


	36. Going Through Hell

A little explanation. I knew the situation in Syria was bad, but I didn't realize it was as bad as it was. So I had to make some changes at the last minute as a result of my research.

Also, I'm imagining Nigel with a slightly highbrow British accent, but really , so adjust your mental models accordingly.

* * *

_**36: Going Through Hell**_

_**Joe**_

"Do you believe that really is the Bride's sister?" Nigel asked, cracking open a bottle of water.

"It's possible," I admitted. "They're both superhuman."

"Both superhuman? Do you actually believe that video is _real_?"

"If I didn't, would I be here?" I asked him.

"True," he admitted. "But _superhuman_?"

"Stronger, faster, and much tougher than we are," I told him. "Plus they have special powers that are unique to each individual. What The Bride is doing actually isn't that far out there for them."

"Them?" Nigel asked. I nodded, and he asked, "Well, where did they come from? Real life is not a superhero movie. Most of the things that are supposed to make one a superhero are lethal."

"They're from another world," I said honestly.

"Another world?" Nigel asked, understandably skeptically. "Are you mad?"

I shook my head, knowing how insane I must have sounded. "It's a hell of a story. I don't even believe it myself, but they did a pretty good job trying to convince me. And what was that Sherlock said?"

"If you've thrown out the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

"Exactly," I said, deciding to leave out the "from fiction" part for now. "Look, you can ask Ruby about it if you want to know."

"I think I will," Nigel said slowly, before realizing something else. "Wait, you said _them_?Are there more?"

"A few," I answered.

"Is Sam also-"

"Nope. Just a squishy human like you and me."

"You know, with all the fuss your friend has been raising, I would not be surprised if someone was already looking for her," Nigel said, putting aside the matter for the moment. "If my country is planning something, I have not heard of it, and in any case it would more likely be the Americans. They already have a strong presence nearby."

"Honestly, I would be glad to run into DEVGRU at this point," I told him. "I know those kids are paranoid about evil government, but I'd rather let the professionals take care of it and we can all ride out on a Blackhawk."

"Indeed," he agreed, going silent.

"So, what's the best way to find her?" I asked. I snapped my fingers. "Is Blackbeard still around?"

"If you are asking if _Hassan_ is still in Raqqa," Nigel corrected, rolling his eyes, "Maybe. The phones don't really work anymore, so it's hard to contact anyone."

He put down his now-empty bottle of water. "Although in this case following the path of destruction may indeed be the best method."

"So, what do we do?"

He sighed. "You know what my job really is. I phone in troop movements when it's not too dangerous to do so."

"Come on, man, you used to be a Para," I reminded him. "Don't tell me you've gone soft."

"Even in this place, Six is a far easier employer," he admitted.

"Personal opinion?"

"Our options are extremely limited," he said, thinking about it for a minute. "A truck, I think. We load you, Sam, and the girl into the back, fill it with perhaps some kind of supplies, and drive through Islamic State territory with forged papers. We find your friend, put her in a box, and take her back."

He reached out and knocked over the bottle on the table. "Only problem is getting all of that together."

"Yeah."

"Seems the world has gone mad overnight."

"No shit."

* * *

_**Ruby Rose**_

"I managed to get us a truck," Nigel told us as we ate breakfast, which was the packaged food that we brought and it wasn't very good. "Not a lot of cargo, but we can say we're going to pick something up."

"Forged papers?" Joe asked.

"Not very good ones, but yes. Hopefully they won't look too closely."

"Wait, what's going on?" I asked, confused.

"Well, I'm going to load you three into the back of a truck and drive into Islamic State territory," Nigel said. "

"Just us?"

"Yes. I'm driving. Couldn't find anyone else." Nigel said ruefully. "I hope they don't think too much of my accent."

"That's the plan?" Sam asked.

"Yes. Hopefully we'll be able to get through all the checkpoints and meet someone we can trust in Raqqa," Nigel explained.

"What if they find out?" I asked.

"Then this could get exciting very quickly," Nigel said gravely.

We finished breakfast and headed outside, where an old rusty truck was driving up. It stopped and a dirty, bearded man got out. He had a conversation with Nigel in a language I didn't understand, then they embraced and he walked away quickly.

Nigel turned to us. "All right, pile into the back. Quickly now."

"Wait," he interrupted as I started climbing into the truck. "Are you really from another world?"

I looked at Joe, who paused in moving boxes and nodded at me.

I turned back to Nigel. "Yes. It's called Remnant."

His eyes went wide briefly but he stayed calm. "And is everyone like you and your sister?"

"What do you mean?" There were lots of ways people could be like us.

"Capable of, well, capable of fighting like that."

"Well, no, only some of us," I admitted. They said both me and Yang had a lot of potential, otherwise we wouldn't have ended up at Beacon. "But even people who can't are stronger than you are. No offence."

"None taken. I just can't believe I'm talking to an actual alien," Nigel said, waving me into the truck. "Well, I suppose it's just one more insane thing to add to the pile of insanity."

"No shit, eh?" Joe said, pulling me behind an old splintery crate. "Okay, guys, food and water is in the little cardboard box."

"What about the black bags?" Sam asked, hefting one.

"Insurance," Joe told us. "They aren't loaded. Remember where the safety on an AK is?"

"On the right side, push it down to fire," I recited.

"Right. You'll have to chamber a round first. And for the love of god, don't start shooting unless there's no other option."

"Remember, keep quiet and don't do anything dumb," Nigel reminded us before pulling the canvas cover down over the back of the truck.

So I was in the middle of a horrible war, not doing anything to help anyone except maybe my sister, riding in the back of truck trying to sneak into a city full of evil people to not do anything except get Yang and get out and it smelled bad back here.

This sucked.

* * *

_**Yang Xiao Long**_

I needed to escape.

Wherever this insane place was, I needed to get out of it. It was just a horrible place to be, a twisted perversion and a total disaster zone. It was impossible to describe. Unspeakable cruelty in a dead city, and just so much confusion on my part. I had so many questions, but I couldn't even try to answer them. I was running from people who I couldn't understand, who were after me for reasons I had no idea about.

I'd never felt so alive, but I'd never felt so dead either.

Was going north really the right way, or was it a trap? What was waiting up there? Where was up there?

I needed to get out of the city, that was for sure. I wouldn't get very far walking, especially in a desert. And if the city was this bad, who knew what was out there? I needed transportation. And as much as I wished I had Bumblebee with me, I knew that some kind of truck would be better.

A lone truck which might have been white at some point was sitting on the side the road. I approached it quickly. If it didn't work, I could find another one, but this was the least destroyed I'd seen. I opened the door, which wasn't locked.

This thing must have been ancient. There were lots of actual buttons and knobs, and what looked like a crude manual shifter in the centre. At least the steering wheel was more or less the same.

As I tried to find the start control, a man in military gear with a rifle sneaked up on the door. He knocked twice and I immediately opened the door into him and jumped out of the vehicle.

I was getting tired. He shouldn't have been able to get that close.

There were three others with him, all dressed in military fatigues and carrying rifles. As two of them checked on their friend, the third approached me, looking serious and seriously angry. "Are you Yang Xiao Long?"

"Who wants to know?" I asked, trying to look as threatening as possible. I could tell these guys weren't the same. They were probably their elite troops or something. I didn't really want a fight, but if they wanted it, I would give it.

"I'm a navy seal," he said, keeping a bit of distance.

"You're a furry sea mammal?" I snarked, cocking Ember Celica.

One of the others approached me. "Miss Long, you need to come with-" He grabbed my arm. I swung around and drove my fist into- or rather through- his face.

The other soldier brought his rifle up and opened fire. I returned the favour, punching a nice hole in his chest from where I was standing.

The guy on the ground shouted something, but I didn't hear him. I rushed him and his friend. The standing soldier brought up his arm to block and I felt bone shatter when I hit. I hit him again with my left, crushing his ribcage, and finished him off with a blow to the head.

The last soldier, on the ground, scrambled to his feet. I didn't give him a chance to get away, grabbing him and tossing him into a wall repeatedly until he stopped moving.

The men were carrying weapons, vests and bags full of supplies I didn't have the time or the stomach to check. I didn't know where I was going but weapons were always handy and I might need food if they had any. Trying to ignore how pulverized the bodies were, I took what I could and threw it into the truck before getting in beside.

This time, I managed to find the starter, which was a key slot on the side of the steering column. The previous owner had left the key in it, and I turned it all the way. The engine sputtered once. I turned the key again, noticed it was kind of sprung at the end, and held it there for a while until the engine came to life with a weird knocking sound.

I threw it into what I hoped was the right gear and lurched off toward the edge of the city.

* * *

Firehawk242: We are squishy meatbags.

LoneWolf218: Maybe.

Guest: That's the point. Might have been a pun.


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